Airfix Spitfire F Mk 22 - new tool 1:72 scale - first one finished

Airfix 1:72 Spitfire F. 22 photographed with the Airfix PR.XIX. The Mk. 22 is more or less finished  -just one or two stencils from the impressively large decal sheet to add and perhaps the wingtip nav lights to add although they are too thin for my usual 'coloured plastic' technique. I've cut out the elevators and added a whip aerial. Overall a nice kit - and building this was a great way to learn more about this variant - and others ; for example the wings from the MK 22 cross-kitted with the XIX will produce an early Mk 21. On the Mk 22 the bubble canopy, re-designed wing, cannon armament and larger tail surfaces are immediately evident. Battle of Britain ace, and later Boscombe Down test pilot, Tom Neil, writing in Air Enthusiast 54 wasn't a fan; " in my opinion the Spitfires 22 and 24, plus the Spiteful, were the most beautiful aircraft ever designed; with their enormous spinners, tear-drop hoods, cutaway fuselages and enlarged tails they looked absolutely right. Unfortunately I found them less attractive to fly.." The prototype Mk. 22 PK312 was first flown on 21 March 1945 and was evaluated at Boscombe Down as a ground attack fighter. "PK 312 I grew to hate - every time I took off in it something seemed to happen  - an oil leak, a hydraulic problem, gun stoppage, the engine sounding like someone shaking a bag of nails..in my opinion the aircraft was the Pygmalion awfulest Spitfire ever built.."

new tool 1:72 Airfix P-51 D Mustang is here ! Progress on the Airfix Spitfire Mk 22 (2)

..great, one of my favourite types in a nice new tool at half the price of the Tamiya kit! Detailed cockpit, poseable flaps, tread detail on the tyres, superbly rendered wheel wells etc etc. No need to struggle ever again with the Italeri and Academy P-51 Ds in this scale, performing surgery on the wings, trying to get the windscreen to fit. ..ahh, the windscreen; probably the one area where the Airfix kit falls down a little since it is moulded separately to the front coaming and was damaged in this particular kit. Nonetheless I look forward to finishing my first one soon ! Here are some sprue shots and a little bit of progress on the cockpit - yep, that bottom shot below is an Airfix cockpit!

Italeri and Academy P-51Ds on this blog


http://falkeeinsmodel.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/more-mustangs.html
http://falkeeinsmodel.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/ray-littge-352nd-fg-miss-helen.html
http://falkeeinsmodel.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/urban-drew-361st-fighter-group-detroit.html

..and some progress on the new tool Airfix Spitfire Mk 22, day 6. My first one will be a natural metal finish using the kit decals, making it possible to do much of the construction prior to painting. Over on the Airfix Tribute forum one modeller finished his, painted and decalled, in an afternoon and evening! Tricky areas; fitting the cockpit, getting the wings on, fitting the undercarriage, the legs being somewhat too big for the locating holes, while the tail wheel doesn't seem to have a locating hole. I've cut out the elevators, attached a fuse-wire whip aerial, drilled out the head armour support;

Airfix Spitfire F Mk 22 - new tool 1:72 scale review

Airfix continue to release new molds faster than I can build them. I have made a start on their lovely 1:72 scale new tool Spitfire MK 22. Considered by many as the 'ultimate' Spitfire, the Mk 22 was almost the last of the RAF's Spitfires into service and one of the first RAF types postwar to feature a move from the early 1940s war-time camouflage schemes of Dark Green and Ocean Grey to a more US-style natural metal finish. Other major differences from more 'conventional' war-time Spitfires include the five-bladed prop, 'bubble' canopy ( you get two in the kit, one of which allows the canopy to be posed  open), the 'cut-down' rear fuselage, re-designed wing and the armament of four 20mm cannon. The first squadron to equip with the type was No. 607 Sqn of the Royal Auxiliary Air Force - the RauxAF becoming the biggest user of the type - see the Paul Lucas feature in  Model aircraft Monthly, April 2009 (Vol 8 issue 4)

This looks to be a lovely little kit. Personally I'm a big fan of the new look Airfix - they are at least releasing new kits on a regular basis, re-packaging if not re-tooling older ones, which makes them (along perhaps with Trumpeter, maybe Revell and Eduard..) the current standard bearers of the hobby!  Valiant, Swordfish, 24 scale Mosquito, 48th scale Lynx  (..there, got my argument in first in case you were about to start ...)



And while the fitment of the cockpit may be a little tricky, simply shave a little plastic off the  'shoulders' of the instrument panel, dry-fitting as you go. And neither have I seen any 'supposed' quality control issues with this lovely kit, see my part 4 on sprue C below..perfectly molded!

Of course there has been the usual spouting off on the forums, but at first view the detractors have very meagre pickings again - I've even read some comments on the placement of the ejector pin marks - which can merely be swiped off with some basic tools ! Personally I have little time for Airfix's critics - if they can't see that a good quality £5 'buildable' Spitfire or Hurricane or Me 109 or P-51 is not a good thing for the hobby then, well.... there were comments about the new tool Emil that conveyed the impression that the kit was virtually 'unbuildable' - comments that are frankly ridiculous and completely over the top. Got a problem with dihedral flattening out because the wing fit is pretty tight, then sand a little off the wing root, its not difficult! Funny too how the knockers (oo-errh!) and nit-pickers don't ever show any of their models - I suspect that their egos wouldn't stand it..

Airfix 1:72 scale Bf 109 E-4 new tool

..my second one of these nice little kits completed. A pleasant little build second time around - didn't experience any of the 'problems' reported elsewhere - cowling too short ? ..it is perhaps if you've built too many Tamiya Emils. I even managed to get the smaller parts off the sprue this time without breaking them, the dihedral etc was spot on..kit decals (added the swastika of course...). Von Werra's machine is often illustrated with a white or even 'lighter' blue cowl - looking at this particular picture of the real thing the entire fuselage looks very 'bright' with the setting sun low in the sky - so ultimately the 'lighter' forward fuselage area is probably in actual fact no more than the glare of the sun light bleaching out the image a little..

Finishing the Revell 1:72 new tool Junkers Ju 88 (4)

...er, well not quite, but having got stuck back into this one- thanks in part to seeing some of the great A-4 schemes on John McIllmurray's new Ju 88 'Experten' and 'Bomber' decal sheets - I've definitely got on top of it now. Masking the glazing, including gondola and landing light must have taken the best part of a full days modelling session. And now I read over on aeroscale.co.uk that Eduard have released a masking set for those modellers unable to face the 'daunting task' of masking this kit - oh well, saved myself 10 euros I guess ! Having said that, I wasn't sure whether to fit all the cockpit armament and assemble and mask or mask/paint off the sprues and then assemble ?? I have gone for the latter option...So there is still quite a way to go and its still a tricky little build requiring a certain amount of filler and 'glue and glaze' in those gaps....

new tool Airfix 1:72 Messerschmitt Bf 109 E-4 - first one finished - (edit 06 June..)

 My first one finished (although I must add some trim tabs..) - in an 8./JG 54 scheme (pilot Lt. Erwin Leykauf, five vics on the rudder mid-1940) from the Aeromaster 'Green Hearts' sheet with the 'Piepmatz' cheeky sparrow cowl emblem. I'm pretty pleased with the kit, less so my hamfisted attempts to touch up the canopy framing where my masking went awry. Aerial mast from sprue, as I've broken two trying to get them off the sprue runners - same thing with the aileron balances. I've added a horizontal splitter plate in the chin radiator from plastic card and brake lines from 5 amp wire. As pointed out elsewhere (thanks Mikey)  if you are doing a model with the flaps down don't forget that the ailerons were linked to the flaps and would both droop to 10 degrees. This is so easy to do on the Airfix kit the way the wing is laid out. Just a couple of scribes along the front of the aileron front inside edge and you can then carefully bend them down the required amount. Having pulled a Tamiya Emil kit out of the stash for  a quick comparison, the similarities between the two kits are striking - although the Airfix kit has the better detail options and a three-piece canopy. Can't be beaten for the price - about 50% less than the Tamiya kit in the UK, if not more....and despite what some Airfix detractors have posted on britmodeller and elsewhere there are no particular problems with wing dihedral or the tailplanes on this kit - far from it. The faults that are present are really just minor niggles... 

 Here's something I read over on britmodeller.com recently. (again thanks Mikey - I'd never really considered this particular 'theory' before...)  Why did some Luftwaffe fighters have white I.D. wing tips and engine panels and some yellow ? One theory has it that when in August 1940 Goering demanded that the fighters stay close to the bombers, nose and wing tips and in some cases even the horizontal stabiliser tips were to be painted Yellow. Of course yellow is a bad colour for coverage even with modern paints  and it is difficult to imagine that they were any better in war-time in the field?  Perhaps, just perhaps, the white we sometimes see on Luftwaffe Battle of Britain fighters is the undercoat for the yellow topcoat yet to be applied. 

Personally I've always thought that the white cowls and rudders seen on Battle of Britain Emils were those flown by Kommandeure and/or Staffelkapitaene, pilots like Wick, to take just one example of an Emil ace whose aircraft featured a white cowl for a period. And another point against this argument is where we see - as here - rudder victory Balken painted on..a white rudder ....

By way of comparison, a view of Airfix 1970's mould Bf 109 Emil in the Battle of Britain colours of III./JG 26 reissued during 2009/10 (IIRC) - not a bad kit either really, once all the raised panel lines are sanding off..although the canopy doesn't fit very well unfortunately..

Masking and painting the new Airfix 1:72nd scale Bf 109 Emil

It's been a while since I managed to finish two kits in one week - and needless to say I haven't managed to do it here either with the nice new Airfix Bf 109 E-4. Still, we are well into the masking and painting stage with  both kits. This is probably for my money one of the best of Airfix's new tools especially in 1:72 scale - it compares very favourably with the Tamiya Emil which I have pulled out of the stash for a quick comparison. The Eduard mask used here was produced for the Tamiya kit and fits the Airfix kit more or less perfectly. The Airfix Emil of course features 'poseable' flaps and an engine - which you don't get in the Tamiya kit. Tricky parts - like the stabiliser braces - fit well