viscount806x

Regarding the future of Airfix, should we be concerned over this report in the news today? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40371393 I do hope not.

Not quite bzn. BAS was born back in the 1960s around 1967 if memory serves. It was a loose grouping of Cambrian and BKS and BEA had a 51% (controlling) interest in it. Otherwise both airlines continued independantly. BEA did impose some decisions though and supplied Viscount V806X fleet replacements to both airlines paid, no doubt, with 'wooden dollars' (in house credit transfers). Also, and you might find this one interesting, it was said that BEA blocked a hoped for deal by BKS for B737s and instead imposed the Trident 1E. That might be a conspiracy theory but we in the airline heard it often and believed it at the time. The hangar at Southend was measured for it apparently. Anyway, BAS persisted and appeared in print on the aircraft in early 1978, persisting after the BKS name change to Northeast and the Cambrian reversion back to Cambrian titling again but in small lettering. We went Orange (Cambrian) and Yellow (Northeast) in early 1972 and early 1971 respectively and thus it stayed until BA was born in 1973 and gradually all went to Speedbird colours but still with initially small Northeast and Cambrian on the forward fuselage sides. Nige B

Or, yellow wings against the blue sky! Sorry, my BA origins were from Northeast/BKS, one of the constituent airline companies which formed BA initially, not just BEA and BOAC as is often quoted but also Cambrian and Northeast.. Yet another tale for another day! Nige B

The 3B had a similar wing but it was fitted at a slightly increased incidence to the fuselage fore/aft datum. This can be seen on the rear wing to body fairing at the rear inner trailing edges. The wing fences are different as is the leading edge arrangement - the 1C had a simple droop which didn't help the short field performance very much. ALL other variants (inc. 1E) had l/e slats which were not segmented at the same points as the droop segments on the 1C. Filling and rescribing would be required to correct this. Passenger window arrangements vary between variants, photos will help you here. The rudder on the 3B is shorter because the bottom of it got truncated to accommodate the RB162 boost engine. This gave the 3B a far worse crosswind limit than the others coincidentally. Others have mentioned the Kuchemann wingtips on the 2E onwards, not fitted to 1C or 1E ever. Later removed from the 2E and 3B fleet during the awful wing mods required following the 'Rib 8' wing cracks found in 1977. If you model a 3B as it appears after 1977 then you would be quite correct to depict the wingtips as the same as the 1C. Oddly, the 1C and 1E fleets were fine and crack free here, lower operating weights probably saved them. I believe the Chinese fleet of 1E, 2E and 3B were never given the wing modifications because cracks weren't found on any of them but I'm not really sure on that one. I've certainly seen late images of a couple which had retained the Kuchemann wingtips when the BA fleet lost theirs. As an aside on the Kuchemann wingtips, it would seem that the RAF Buccaneer fleet also lost their (similar) wingtips after the mod programme which tried to prevent any more losses like the Red Flag incident where one of them shed a wing during manoeuvring at low level. I guess it helped a bit on relieving bending stresses on the rest of the wing. This is certainly why Tridents lost theirs but they had other stuff done too which completely destroyed any semblances of economic operations - but that is a story for another day. Sorry to go on a bit but I was very close and intimate to the Trident in it's later days as a ground (avionic etc.) engineer. It was a great aircraft for being fixable, well developed by BEA over the years and shedloads of spares! The best of the lot was the 2E, best reliability and easiest to work on and, due to it's longer routes, better catering left on board when it came back to us for the night! Nige B

Good builds there. Just to clarify, in case my comment was misread, the original Typhoon was released in 1959 and for that reason was 'ancient'. In it's favour, it was a good shape and of course it lasted well into the second decade of the 21st century. Not bad going for a kit which started it's life hanging up in Woolies for 2/- (10 new Pence). The Academy kit, also shown above) was quite recent by comparison. The canopy from the Airfix Typhoon was also recommended by Chris Ellis in his 1970 book as a way of producing a bubble canopy Spitfire from the Airfix Mk.IX (JE-J), a conversion which worked well at a time where bubble canopied model Spits were very unusual and not a little esoteric on a display shelf.

Steve the car door kit (F231) is late Frog, mid '70s whereas the old bubble top (kit 389P) is a much earlier effort, c.1959. The late James Goulding liked the later kit very much in his Aircraft Illustrated review. I rated his reviews highly and his one criticism was that the wing seemed at slightly less incidence to the fuselage than required and proceeded to tell us how to correct it. Nowadays, that sort of critique would kill a kit stone dead but in those days, the car door was a real departure from the norm and came at a good time to compliment the others. My memory is that all there was available was the ancient Frog kit mentioned above and the equally prehistoric Airfix 1B from the same era. This last only very recently replaced by the new tool kit. There was of course the 1/96 scale Eagle Typhoon kit, gone and forgotten by the 1970s. Anyone remember those? Nige B

Been on t'internet for years now along with Wonderful Radio London, Radio Sutch and many of the others too. t makes the BBC music radio look a bit irrelevant just as they did way back in 1964. I know, I was there in Yorkshire listening to them distantly and with great difficulty. We eventually got our own Radio 270 in Bridlington Bay until the disaster of 1967 and the Marine Offences Act.

CMR told me recently that there is an new injection Harvard II coming soon from someone unnamed and for that reason they have binned their own planned new resin Harvards II. Nobody seems to know anything more. Bit frustrating actually.

Very informative tale but that bit above is a bit of a cheek from an ancillary trade....... Only kidding, sorry. I'm an ex 'Fairy' and no, I never did open or close the hangar doors either. That last bit's a lie too, I did, many times. In fact I had to take the rest of the shift off once and sit at Otley A&E having trapped my finger in the doors. Nige B

An endangered species in their own right methinks.....

Thanks for the info Tony and I know what you mean in the last bit. Nige B

Thanks SF

Thanks for that Tony. I have the MDC conversion but I think it is a bit lacking according to another thread here on BM. Belcher Bits Harvard conversions are not sold or stocked by any European dealers according to Mr. Belcher and being quite pricey would no doubt attract eye watering customs charges as well as postage from Canada. I think that the SH Wirraway kit conversion would definitely be a good economic proposition (by comparison) even if having also to buy an Italeri (for e.g.) kit as a donor for a prop and canopy (assuming that would be suitable??). I have canvassed Petr of SH to see if he might consider a slight revision of the Wirraway kit to give us a Harvard I but I haven't heard back from him so far. Cheers, NB

Very nice indeed. I'm wondering what it would take to make a Harvard Mk.I from this kit but I think the canopy might be an issue.

The short answer to the original question is,,,, We want a 1:48 Scimitar because there isn't one and we covet what we can never have. Usually. Having said that, I have enjoyed the very respectful to and fro ing of the discussions and yes I would buy one to show willing just as I would, without hesitation, support a Harvard Mk.I in either scale or a decent new 1:48 Hunter. Well, that's me and here, I have my Paypal ready and waiting for any manufacturer who would care to relieve me of my grandsons inheritance.... Nige B