Airfix: What are worthwhile kits?
Frank Henriquez
>Knowing from the current thread that their 1/72 Lancaster is a worthwhile
>decent kit, I wonder what others are good from Airfix?
I think Airfix kits have the widest range of quality - from "Outstanding" to
"What the Hell is This Lump Of Plastic?" To their credit, they have
tackled a wide range of subjects. Here's my review of some of the 1/72
Airfix kits that I have.
Good kits: Not all of their early kits were bad. Many (most? all?) have
raised panel lines and lack the fine detail of modern kits, but will still
build up into a nice model.
F-80C This kit hasn't been re-released in a while, which is a pity
because it's the only F-80 in this scale. The fuselage has almost no panel
detail (as it should be) and the wings have very fine raised panel lines.
The nose and tail look a little strange, but they can be fixed. Throw in
some bits from the Hasegawa T-33 and a resin ejection seat from True
Details, and you have a nice model of the F-80.
Meteor III Another simple, rare, but nice kit. The fuselage carries the
Airfix "signature" - many out of scale rivets - but luckily they can be
toned down with some work. It's also the only easily available injection
kit of this plane.
Pe.2. Nice kit of this Soviet WWII bomber. Nice enough to detail the
interior and otherwise spruce up. No rivets!
Average to bad kits:
Whirlwind Mk 1. Not bad, not good, just average. The cannon look awful,
the canopy (like most Airfix kits) is thick and the decals are out of
register. No rivets, though!
Supermarine Walrus II. OK kit, but the exposed radial engine could use
lots of work, and the cockpit is just a slab for the pilot.
Bristol Beaufighter TFX. No rivets, poor engine detail, no cockpit detail...
IL-28 Soviet Jet bomber. This kit was recently rereleased. The pilot's
canopy is missing the glazing right behind the seat - it's just gray
plastic in the kit. The working hatches and flaps are cute, but don't fit
flush with the surrounding surfaces. Not much in the way of interior
detail, and engine detail is minimal.Raised, "Great Wall Of China" style
panel lines. Thick canopies. Still, it can ve made into a good model.
Do-17E-2. Don't know if to class this as an average or awful kit. It's
certainly one of their earlier efforts.The BMW radials are a joke, and the
canopy frames on the very thick glazed areas are not distinct.
Blohm & Voss BV 141. Wierd airplane, average kit, with some fit problems
and typical bad Airfix BMW radials and lack of cockpit details.
FW 189. There are two kits of this plane, one by Airfix and one by Arii.
The Airfix kit is the best of the two, but besides the typical Airfix
problems (see B&V 141 above) this kit is missing some obvious details of
the 189, and the mid fuselage area is odd, possibly wrong. Like the BV 141
(both planes were competing for the same job, the FW 189 won) both planes
feature large glazed cockpit areas... of course, Airfix provides no
interior details. Oh yeah, this is a RIVET plane. Thousands of rivets. No
fun sanding them down, either.
Heinkel He 177. Recently re-released. Big bomber in the typical Airfix
light blue plastic. On the plus side, this is the only injected model
available of this plane in this scale and it comes with Hs293 guided
bombs. Airwaves released a nice photoetched cockpit detail set...which
would be invisible behind the typically thick Airfix canopy. However,
Squadron sells a vac clear canopy... which would then require a cockpit
detailing set, since the now visible cockpit is pretty bare. This kit is
also a Rivet Queen, with vast expanses of plastic covered in grossly out
of scale rivets. Some of the parts can be used as sand paper, in a pinch.
B-25. Nothing wrong with this kit besides the many rivets and thick
glazing...it's just that the Italieri/Testors and even the Monogram
Snap-Tite B-25s make better kits.
Mig-15. This kit was made by the US branch of Airfix, in the 70's. It's
*supposed* to be a Mig-15, it says so on the box top and on the
instructions...except that this thing bears only a passing resemblance to
a Mig-15 (both are single engine, swept wing jet fighters with intakes in
the nose). The panel lines are very crude...and are almost as high as the
wing fences...which are not tall enough! This kit doesn't even have a
cockpit - just a seat for the pilot. And to think that a dinosaur gave its
all just to be turned into this piece of crap...
That's it for now.
Frank
--
Frank Henriquez UCLA Astronomy Department
fr...@ucla.edu -or- fr...@bnkl01.astro.ucla.edu
taylor
only ones, of a particular subject, that are injection molded:
1/72 Scale
HP Halifax III - shows its age
Short Stirling - not as nice as the Lanc but comes with bomb trolleys
and tractor as a bonus
Sopwith Pup
Martin Marauder
Douglas Invader (if you ignore all the rivets)
Avro Anson (OOP, I think)
HP Hampden (also OOP but available under the Bilek label from Squadron)
Do17E/F (another Bilek kit)
Westland Whirlwind (again Bilek, wish Tamiya/Hasegawa/Minicraft would
do one of these in 1/48)
The sets of RAF WWII emergency, refueling, and recovery vehicles
HP 0/400 WWI bomber
1/144
Boeing 314 Clipper
Trident
Comet 4
(are they ever going to reissue the 1-11 and the VC-10???? And how
about that big hovercraft???)
Obviously, this is not a complete list but just what comes to mind,
immediately.
Russ Taylor
Univ. of Illinois
Po-Shen Lai
Knowing from the current thread that their 1/72 Lancaster is a worthwhile
decent kit, I wonder what others are good from Airfix? Actually this can
be directed to all manufactures, but just take Airfix as a start point.
I really appreciate the information I got from the net for F-86, Lancaster,
F-18, Mig 29, etc. I would think a lot people will appreciate this since
not everyone has a chance to open up each F-16 from every manufacture to
measure/compare... And over years I found that $$ does not equal quality.
Example: Monogram 1/48 A-10 is better and A LOT cheaper than Tamiya one.
But I would not know this without this newsgroup. So can everyone share
their thoughts? Maybe we can build a cross-reference table, too.
Certainly I understand people have different taste, but at least accuracy
wise there is not much room. (We have actual measurement for each aircraft,
tanks, etc.)
Thanks.
Po-Shen
SC Lexicat
Mosquito 1/72 and 1/48
Hurricane 1 1/48 and 1/24
JU87B 1/48 and 1/24
Concorde 1/144
Lancaster 1/72
Buccaneer 1/48
Spitfire 1 1/72
Spitfire Vb 1/48 (prefer Tamiya though)
FW190D 1/72
FW190A 1/24
Handley Page HP42 1/144
Humber staff car 1/32
All the 1/32 cars, providing you accept they're on the old side. They're
inexpensive, anyway.
Airfix kits I would avoid:
ME262 1/72
Spitfire 9 1/72
Gladiator 1/72
Not a comprehensive list: just what I can think of as I sit here.
HTH
Simon Craven
Lexicat Ltd
England (also at scr...@delphi.com)
Abe Lynn
> Mosquito 1/72 and 1/48
> Hurricane 1 1/48 and 1/24
> JU87B 1/48 and 1/24
> Concorde 1/144
> Lancaster 1/72
> Buccaneer 1/48
> Spitfire 1 1/72
> Spitfire Vb 1/48 (prefer Tamiya though)
> FW190D 1/72
> FW190A 1/24
> Handley Page HP42 1/144
> Humber staff car 1/32
To these I might add:
1/72 B-26 Marauder
1/72 Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker
1/72 Kamov Ka-25 Hormone
1/72 SB2C Helldiver
1/72 RAF/NATO weapons, hi-tech (some sinkhole problems)
1/32 Multi-pose US Marines, WWII
1/24 Junkers Ju-87B Stuka (I think Heller is handling the molds now)
Abe Lynn
EB Ford
Their Bristol Bulldog is a jewel, and their MBB 105 and Westland Scout are
outstanding.
Also like their 1/72 Bf 109E, a little puffy around the edges detail-wise,
but the most accurate rendition in this scale.
The 1/24 aircraft are classics and all well worth building. For my money
the Hurricane is the best of these.
and...@akira.pindar.com
me it for Christmas (Big Spender!), and it looks to have nice details
and a nice big colourful decal sheet.
Unfortunately she also bought me a gift set with two bad kits (Me262 and
Spit Mk9) and just one good kit (P-51D, Wow it's got some recessed panel
lines!)
Next year she'll buy me the 1/24 Stuka, or there'll be trouble!
PS does anybody know exactly when this is being re-released, and at what
price? I read about this in one of the SAM magazines recently.
The Heller version goes for 43.50 Sterling hereabouts.
Cheers
Andrew Walker
Martin Waligorski
I have made a couple of old Airfix kits and I found some that are quite
attractive and, most of all, accurate. I can reccomend:
1/72 Spitfire MkI - for my money it's the best 1/72 early mark Spit.
1/72 Spitfire MkV - very similar to MkI, but older molds. Main components
very nice, but details lack sharpness, like propeller.
1/72 Hurricane MkI - very accurate in shape, but now when Hasegawa is
about to release their Hurricane, you might want to wait
1/72 Mosquito Mk II/VI/XVIII - so far the best Mossie in 1/72. Newly
reissued as Mk XXX, but all old parts are still in the box.
1/72 Fw 190 D - very good in outline, except wings that are too thick -
quite easy to improve. If you want the best, you would like to go for the
Hasegawa model.
Martin
Andrew Abshier
DC-9-30: Accurate in outline, goes together well. The
baggage doors are in the wrong place, but that's not a hard
fix.
A300B4: Same as the DC-9. Minor accuracy problems that are
easy to fix.
727-200: Both good and bad. Nice outline, but with the
lousy wings from the original 727-100 release (poor fit,
fence on trailing edge instead of leading edge).
Andy
Martin Sagara
Above average for Airfix.
The DeHavilland U-6 Beaver is also a nice kit if you're looking
for something a little unusual.
Martin Sagara "Never before have so many,
Research Associate understood so little,
Wings Over The Rockies Air & Space Museum about so much"
Hangar No. 1, Old Lowry AFB
Denver, CO James Burke speaking about
msa...@rmii.com technology in "Connections"
http://www.abwam.com/air&space
The views expressed do not necessarily represent those of the
Wings Over The Rockies Air and Space Museum