Airfix 1/72 BAC Lightning F3

AIRFIX 1:72 BAC LIGHTNING F3

Reviewer: Mark Green (pamark@bigpond.com)
Kit Review submitted: February 2000

Unusual in many ways, the Lightning was the first all British supersonic military aircraft to go into production. Beginning as the P.1 research aircraft it evolved from the F.Mk1 through the F.Mk 1A, F.Mk 2, F.Mk 2A, F.Mk 3 and F.Mk 6 single seaters, along with the T.Mk 4 and 5 dual-seat trainers. The aircraft was also exported to Kuwait under the designation F.Mk 53 and 55. The early models had restricted armament and range because of limited fuel supplies, but this was increased by the addition of an enlarged belly tank and, eventually, overwing drop tanks.

First flown in 1960 it was Britain's front line aircraft throughout the cold war, armed with 2 Red Top infra-red anti-aircraft missiles and, in the later versions, two 30mm Aden cannons. With a maximum speed of Mach 2.25 and a rate of climb of 50,000 feet/min, I am sure many Russian Bear crews found out rather quickly exactly what a lightning looked like.

The kit itself consists of 35 injection molded parts, of which 34 are in light Grey styrene, with a one piece windscreen/canopy nicely molded in clear. All panel lines are represented by reasonably fine raised lines, with the control surfaces engraved, and there is no flash or warpage to speak of.

This is a reasonably old kit and it shows in the cockpit, which consists of a crude ejector seat and an equally crude pilot who has the misfortune of getting impaled on a spike molded in the seat backrest. There is no instrument panel, sidewall detail, controls or cockpit floor, so unless you want to spend time scratchbuilding this detail (which for me is the best part), it might be best not to even contemplate separating the windscreen from the canopy.

The undercarriage doors are way too thick, but as they are simple flat shapes, it would not be difficult to replace them with plastic card. The undercarriage units themselves are softly molded but adequate in this scale. The wheels are nice and thin, which is a characteristic of Lightnings, as they used skinny high pressure tyres (so don't go putting flats on them) to fit inside the thin wing, and have reasonable hub detail.

Most of the other parts are softly molded, but still of a reasonable standard, and the only sink mark is a slight depression that runs in a straight line from behind the canopy down to under the nose. This is caused by the bulkhead for the rear of the cockpit being molded with the fuselage halves, and will need sanding, if not filling. This will result in the removal of the panel lines in this area.

On the fuselage above the wing root are two small cut out rectangular ports, these appear to be an afterthought as they cross existing panel lines and suggest to me that this kit is a retooling of a previous model. I would simply scrape these small panel lines off as they are probably not meant to be there on this mark of Lightning.

The kit instructions are a folded two page affair with a brief history of the aircraft and seven well drawn construction steps There should be no problems here even for a complete beginner. The painting guide gives four views for each of the two kit subjects, but only gives Humbrol paint numbers. This is frustrating because, unless you have a Humbrol chart, you do not even know the name of the colour you need, and if you can't get Humbrol paints where you live it can be a real problem. Come on Airfix smarten your act up!

The decals give a choice of two machines. The first is a low visibility machine in Gull Grey over Ghost Grey from 11 Sqdn RAF Binbrook in 1984, and a camouflaged example in Dark Grey and Extra Dark Sea Grey over aluminium operated by 5 Sqdn at Binbrook a year previously. The decals themselves are very thin and matt but the dark blue is out of register slightly which is very noticeable on the big roundels of the 5 Sqdn machine. The fin flash on the 11 Sqdn machine is also out of register but could be rectified with a little trimming.

I have included two images in this review. One is of the kit box art and the second (below) is of an 11 Sqdn Lightning F3 operating at the same time as the aircraft the kit portrays. If you look at the two you will notice the demarcation line between the upper and lower colours are in different positions on each. This just shows the importance of checking your references if these things are important to you.

Overall I like this kit, it is basic but honest and good value. Give it to a beginner and a nice model will be the result, but put it in the hands of a more experienced modeller and they could really go to town. It's modest price would allow you to buy some new decals and some bits for the cockpit and still not break the bank.

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Pictrure Credit: Unknown

11 Sqn Lightning F3 taking off

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