Rare Plane 1/72 Gloster Meteor F Mk.8

RARE PLANE 1:72 GLOSTER METEOR F MK.8

Reviewer: Tim Beales (rec.models.scale)
Kit Review submitted: 28 November 2003

Kit Details:

1/72 Gloster Meteor F8/FR9 by Rareplane Vacforms

History:

Derived from the only allied jet fighter to serve in WW2, the RAF's Meteor F8 was the most numerous and advanced fighter version of the type. Although the Meteor began to be phased out by the RAF in the early 1960s, it eventually ended up serving with the RAF in a variety of roles right up until the early 1970s! The meteor was a successful design, and won export orders. The front-line career lifespan of nearly 30 years is not bad going for a jet fighter, and is unlikely to be beaten. The Meteor F8 was the only British Jet used in action in Korea (by the Royal Australian Air Force though). As well as being a fighter, the Meteor was employed as a target tug, a trainer, a reconnaissance aircraft, and station hack.

The Kit:

This is an old vacuform kit dating from 1980, and is contained in square, plastic pocket bag. The parts are moulded onto two white plastic sheets along with a clear acetate sheet, which contains the canopy and an alternative nose for an FR9 version. These moulds show the usual Rareplane attention to detail, with some lovely panel work and surface detail.

The breakdown of the parts is:

Port/starboard fuselage halves;
The upper and lower halves of the port/starboard wings;
Two halves for two optional fuel tanks;
Two jetpipe blanks;
Two sets of main undercarriage doors;
Two halves for the port/starboard mainwheels;
Two halves of the nosewheel;
Two upper and lower halves for the port/starboard tailplanes;
A belly tank;
The front undercarriage doors; and
The cockpit items consisting of a bulkhead, a cockpit floor, a seat, and an instrument panel.

Instructions:

The instructions are laid out on two large sheets. Half of the first sheet acts as the header card (showing an unidentified Meteor F8), with the lower half showing an exploded view of the parts for construction. The second sheet provides a brief history and references, along with a very nice 1/72-scale four-view scheme of an unusual coloured Meteor F8.

Construction:

All the parts were separated from the backing sheet using a sharp blade and sanded flat. Construction then proceeded as for any injection-moulded kit.

I began by cementing the pilot's seat onto the raised block on the cockpit floor, and then cemented these to the bulkhead. Next, I added the raised control panel in front of the pilots seat, and added a control column that I had made from stretched sprue. The entire cockpit module was then painted black. I painted on the dials on the dashboard.

I then painted the inside of the fuselage black, and cemented the cockpit module in place. As I had decided to do the F8 version, and although not stated in the instructions, I added some lead fishing weights to the inner nose, as I did not want the final model to be a tail-sitter (being a vacuform, not much is needed). The two fuselage halves were now joined together.

Next, I made up the two wings, remembering to add the jetpipe blanks. The front and back apertures of the jet engines needed to be cut away. Next, I assembled the fuel tanks and wheels. These fiddly parts are not best suited to the vacuform process, and while I thought that mine were acceptable, perfectionists will no doubt resort to some aftermarket products.

The wings were butt joined onto the fuselage, and some filler used around the joints was required. Rareplane suggest making a wing spar, but I did not, as I find that this is rarely necessary. The undercarriage and the undercarriage doors were then attached in their indicated location points, and the wing fuel tanks and central fuselage belly tank were also added at this point. The tailplanes were added next, and once again, some filler was used around the joint. I finished off by adding the canopy (this was trimmed from the sheet first time, and was a good fit with easy guidelines). I rounded off the model by adding a wing pitot tube, a fuselage whip aerial, and four shellcase ejectors that were made from stretched sprue and evergreen strip.

Versions:

No decals are supplied with the kit, but a line drawing of an attractive Meteor F8 of No. 79 Squadron at RAF Chivenor in 1972 is provided. This is all over light grey with Day-Glo red panels on the fuselage, engines, and wings. Not being a good enough painter to do this, (the spirit was willing, but the flesh is weak), I used decals from a Modeldecal sheet, and camouflaged my kit to show an RAF Meteor F8 from the 1960s in the standard RAF dark green/dark grey upper camouflage over aluminium.

Accuracy:

Chaz Bowyer quotes the dimensions of the Meteor F8 as: span = 37 ft 2 in and length = 44 ft 7 in. Converted to 1/72 metric units (along with the figures from my model) these are: 15.7 (15.7) and 19 cm (19), respectively. So, bang on.

Final Comments:

A nice build of a version of the Meteor that has not been catered for by the mainstream manufacturers, (although since this kit was made there has been a resin kit released by CMK, and a limited run injection by Aeroclub in 1/72). This is a relatively easy vacuform build, and so is recommended as a first vacuform if you have not built one before. (Note. Being a vacuform, remember to use a primer before paining on any enamels. I used Humbrol No. 1).

web hosting • domain names • video sharing
free online games • photo sharing
free blog • short URLs