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Reviewer: Pete Noyle  (peternoyle@kw.igs.net)
Kit Review submitted:  8 August 2004

The aircraft

Wingspan             34 ft 10 in               (10.6 m)                                                 

Length                   55 ft 3 in (16.84 m)                                                               

Height                   

Service ceiling      77,000 ft (23,400 m)

Top speed             Mach 2.3

Engines                  Two Rolls Royce Avon 200 turbojets with afterburner.

The English Electric P.1 first flew on August 4^th 1954 with the second prototype following on in July of the next year. The power plant at the time was two Armstrong Siddeley Sapphire turbojets without afterburners. Twenty pre-production aircraft were ordered powered by Rolls Royce Avon engines with full afterburner capability. The wings of the Lightning, as the aircraft would become known, are swept at sixty degrees and feature ailerons at the wing tips. The aircraft got to be known as “two engines with a driver in front.” The P.1B provided greater range by fitting ventral fuel tank and armament was provided with a pair of cannons.

Production began and the first ever supersonic combat aircraft for the RAF went into service in 1960.

The initial requirement did not specify Mach 2 performance, but EE had seen that it was possible and the American's F-104 programme was also progressing towards Mach 2 performance. (It was later stated by ‘authorities’ that the Lightning's performance at Mach 2 was much superior to that of F-104’s – hmmm). The aircraft's new Rolls Royce Avon engines gave the extra performance. 

Externally the Lightning F.1 differed very little from the P.1B, but the ventral fuel tank now had a small fin for additional stability and later the fin was enlarged. Variable afterburners were used in the F.2 variant. The F.3 had some more major changes including improved AI-23B radar, more powerful Avon engines, a larger square-topped fin and the cannon armament was removed. Red Top missile capability was added and auxiliary overwing fuel tanks were installed (not included in this kit model). The F.6 was the definitive Lightning variant with a much larger ventral fuel tank with twin ventral fins. Cannon armament was re-installed. These modifications were also applied to some F.2 airframes, which then became known as F.2As. These were equivalent to an F.6 apart from not having Red Top AA missiles. 

The Lightnings retired in 1988 and they were replaced by Phantoms and Jaguars. Lightnings were also exported in small numbers to Saudi Arabia and South Africa.

English Electric became part of British Aircraft Corporation.

Kit parts

Kit number 02080 (series 2), provides 35 parts in a crisp, brittle, grey plastic with one clear, nicely moulded canopy. Very little flash is present. Panel lines are traditional Airfix – that is raised and quite fine. No cockpit or wheel well detail is provided. All this is contained loose in a small top opening box which in turn is covered in a cellophane wrapper. No shipping damage was detected except that one of the main wheel struts was slightly bent. The box says ‘suitable for ages 8 to adult.’

Decals

The small decal sheet allows a choice of two machines to be detailed - aircraft XR749 used by 5 sqdn RAF Binbrook as in 1983 or XP764 of 11 sqdn RAF Binbrook as in 1984, plus some stencils of markings common to both aircraft. Colour register is good but the red centre of the smaller roundel for XP764 seems a little off centre (see painting and decal application below).

Instructions

A single fold out sheet provides the following information –

• Aircraft description in 9 languages.
• Cautions and icons used.
• 7 construction drawings, all easy to understand.
• Painting and decal location drawings, not so easy to follow – the colour schemes are illustrated by hatched lines or tones of gray and the illustrations are quite small.
• Paint colour call out are Humbrol/Airfix

Construction

We all make mistakes or have mistakes thrust upon us by the kit itself – mine are highlighted under the heading AW GAWD.

I set out to make XR749 as in 11 squadron, RAF Binbrook in 1984.

Step 1 Nose wheel, fin, pilot, ejector seat, nose weight and fuselage halves.

Well, here we go then, another empty office. I found a partial view of the cockpit at a web site (I forgot to make a note of the URL), which was enough to detail a scratch made instrument panel and some of the right side wall. The left wall had to be left to my imagination but I think that, peering through the closed canopy, it looks as though ‘something’ is there. I put in a cockpit floor and centre consol on to which I attached a carved (from sprue), control column. The Martin Baker ejector seat was detailed using an image of the Airwaves resin seat as a guide. The image was useful in that the position of the safety harness and ejector pull down could be copied and added to the kit ejector seat. I did not fit the pilot. The cockpit interior was painted mat Gray with black instruments together with some fine points of red and green paint added (using the point of a cocktail stick). The ejector seat was painted mat Black with the harness blue with silver buckling. All this was completed before joining the fuselage sides. A word of caution about the location pins and holes of the fuselage sides. Several of the pins/holes are large diameter and once the halves are together it is quite difficult to separate them. This was quite frustrating with all the trial fitting that I had to do when detailing the cockpit.

I drilled out and shaped the nose wheel yoke to provide a space between it and the tyre.

AW GAWD.         The nose wheel is, I presume, intended to be loose in the fuselage hole so that the wheel can be moved as though the model was turning a corner. Once the fuselage was assembled I tried to turn the nose wheel and it snapped off! It was easy to reattach but I now have a very weak undercarriage and the wheel is permanently ‘turning the aircraft to the right!’

Step. 2 All flying tailplane and exhaust assembly.

Excellent fit with these parts. The exhaust assembly needs detailing. I drilled out the two jet holes and replaced the jet pipes with brass tube attached to the model with superglue.

Step 3 Canopy

The fit of the canopy to the fuselage is quite good but the profile at the rear does not match the central spine. Filling is necessary to merge the two parts. To avoid damage to the canopy during sanding down the filler (using 400 grit wet & dry used dry), I applied the canopy masking first, just as well because I did slip with the sanding and scuffed the masking slightly.

Step 4 Mainplane to fuselage

The upper wing moulds (parts 11 and 13), have ejector pin marks on the reverse side that are quite visible through the wheel well cut out of the lower wing. They need to be filed off and sanded smooth (unless of course you are completing the model ‘wheels up’). The joint of the wing sub assembly to the fuselage is just fine except for some slight trimming of the lower wing where the mould prevents a close join.

Step 5 Main undercarriage

I modeled the under carriage ‘down.’ The doors are just too thick and I replaced them with scratch made parts cut from 0.010 plastic sheet. Very little seam lines are apparent with the undercarriage legs, just a rub with the knife cleans them up nicely. I did not add the wheels at this stage, leaving them until after final painting.

AW GAWD          I forgot to correct the slight bend of one of the undercarriage legs (reported above), and the undercarriage leg was glued in place at an angle. Perhaps I can twist the leg straight, I thought? Nope, it snapped off. I drilled a 0.016 in diameter hole in each part to accept a wire dowel and glued everything back in its correct place and alignment.

Nose wheel leg broke, main wheel leg broke – I wish now that I had chosen to model the aircraft wheels up or used the metal U/C from Aeroclub!

Step 6 Nose wheel doors

Once again the thick doors need to be replaced by scratch made items.

Step 7 Intake, probe, missiles and airbrakes

The nose cone should be pointed; the moulded parts are too domed. Using a file I cut back the tip of the nose cone down until a flat diameter of about 2 mm was achieved and then using an electric drill I turned a piece of sprue into a small cone with the cone angle approximating the model nose cone. This was glued to the model and when dry (next day) I filed and smoothed the added piece to match the model nose cone contour. The intake lip (30) is really very fine and needs no treatment but I found that the profile of the outer surface of the part did not match the fuselage. It needs to be sanded down.

The missile launch rails have deep ejector pin recesses that need to be filled.

The air brakes (also too thick for scale), do not lie flush with the fuselage side when installed in the closed position. As with the undercarriage doors, the air brakes are too thick for scale so if you are modeling the air brakes open I suggest that scratch made items be made from 0.020 plastic sheet and also some sort of actuator jack will have to included. 

I was concerned that what with the brittle nature of the plastic used in this kit the needle like probe would be snapped off. So far so good – it’s still there! Had the part been broken off I would have replaced the probe with a needle (the point suitably blunted).

AW GAWD.         Later my fears were confirmed, I dropped the model on to the work bench and the probe snapped off!

RED TOP missiles – Illustrations from the web show that the Red Top missile had two colour schemes. One with white fins, aluminium body, black rings, several stencils and makers plates and a red nose cap. The second scheme shows red fins, aluminium body, white rings and a blue cap. The exhaust transport cap is red in both instances. It appears that the launch rail arrives with the missile. I fitted one missile and scratch made a missile transport trolley for the other.  The scenario is to represent missile loading activity but as I do not have suitable crew figures at this time only the trolley has been made. Obviously the armourer has slipped away for a cup of tea, probably hitching a ride on the tractor that delivered the missiles to the aircraft – well, it could happen – couldn’t it?

Painting and decal application

AW GAWD.         There is an error in instructions for the colour call out of the ventral fuel tank for the Lightning at Binbrook in 1984 in that Airfix colour G8 is paired with Humbrol colour 56. Colour 56 is ‘Aluminium’ and G8 is ‘Silver Fox.’ The call out for the 1983 aircraft (for the ventral tank area) as 56/G16 is correct in that both colours are ‘Silver Fox.’

Painting                .               I used a Tamiya light gray from an aerosol can as primer which gave an overall flat colour. All paints used were water soluble acrylic. The first coat applied was US (Dark) Gull Gray from ModelMaster – 4755, and after a couple of days for drying the area was masked and ModelMaster Dark Ghost Gray – 4761, was applied. Once again a couple of days drying time elapsed and the final gray coat, ModelMaster Light Ghost Gray – 4762 was applied (these colours being the nearest shades that were stocked by my local model shop), to the colour call out.

After removing the masking there was some paint bleed to be corrected, but nothing horrendous.

I decided that the ventral fuel tank should be plain aluminium so I used Bare Metal Foil for this area. After application I scuffed the foil with 400 grit wet & dry and burnished the surface with 1500 grit wet & dry to give it a ‘used’ look.

During all this time the masking on the canopy stayed in place and now I was able to apply the black coat to the opening part of the canopy. The instructions do not call for this to be done on aircraft XR749 but I found a photograph on the internet showing the canopy painted thus, complete with the yellow frame. (For the yellow frame I used slivers of a yellow decal forced into a curved shape. The result is not too good but after several applications Testors Decal Set the slivers of decal settled down into a curve). The instructions call for a rectangle of Dark Gray at the rear of the canopy and this was masked and hand brushed on.

Now for the wheel wells. The instructions call for the undercarriage legs to be painted Silver, a common colour for such parts in the 1970’s and 80’s so Silver it had to be, this time brushed on with a black dry-brushing to highlight what little detail there is. The wheel wells were also hand painted Silver.

The intake next. The colour call out for the nose cone is #26, Khaki and as I did not have this colour available I added to Raw Umber a touch of Leaf Green and a touch of Topaz. It was not quite a true khaki but darn near to it.

The exhaust pipes were painted matt Black on the inside and ModelMaster Jet Exhaust on the outside.

Bare Metal Foil ‘Chrome’ was applied to represent the silver panel at the mid point of the fuselage and the intake lip.

Decal application.             

AW GAWD.         The decals just fell apart, the long white lines on the wing upper surface crumbled into little pieces less than a mm long. The fin squadron emblem splintered into two and the roundel’s split in half. The decals were an absolute disaster. Two weeks later Humbrol delivered a new decal sheet and these applied perfectly. The colour register was out of alignment as was the original sheet and the reds were off to one side. The ‘low vis’ roundels had noticeable white crescents on one side, not noticeable until after application! There was some silvering but after an application of Testors Decal Set this seemed to be overcome.

Options

Undercarriage up or down and air brakes open or closed are the options provided for.

Versions

Only the F.3 version of the Lightning is represented, however the decal sheet allows a choice of markings of two aircraft one as seen in 1983 and the other as seen in 1984, each aircraft from RAF Binbrook.

Accuracy

Wingspan             34 ft 10 in               (10.6 m)                  Model equivalent                 36 ft

Length                   55 ft 3 in (16.84 m)                                                                51 ft without probe

Conclusion

A great model of an ugly airplane! A joy to build. Highly recommended to beginner and experienced alike. Cost of the kit in January 2004 was CAN$ 7.99, a bargain. I’m glad I bought it! Oh – the main undercarriage still looks wobbly.

Paints and other finishes used

Tamiya – Primer, light gray.

ModelMaster acryl - Aircraft interior black; Aluminum; Jet exhaust; Dark gull gray; Light ghost gray; Dark ghost gray.

Testors enamel – Silver.

Various artists acrylic paints for the odd detail.

Bare Metal Foil – Chrome.

References

http://www.72scale.com Details about after market parts.

http://www.lightning.org.uk Lightning picture gallery.

http://www.raf.mod.uk/history RAF web site.

Do a search for the individual aircraft and several very usable images will show up.

After market goodies

The following information has been taken from the excellent web site ‘The Definitive 1/72 Scale Model Census’ www.72scale.com Not all of the accessories referenced are still available.

© Pete Noyle 2004
The left side of the Lightning with the Red Top missile cart positioned to hide the wonky main wheel

© Pete Noyle 2004

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