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De Havilland Vampire T.11 - 1:72 Airfix


Paul A H

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I see this kit is so bad Hannants have now sold out!!!

Just managed to get one, anyone know if anyone does Irish decals for this one?

Julien

Max Decals in sheet 72-001, as I mentioned a few pages ago in this same thread.

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Clearing the shelves of this dreadful kit so that others don't have to put up with its awfulness... very public spirited of you! :lol:

It's only a matter of time. I wonder what Xtradecal have in the pipeline. In the meantime, can any of the single-seat options from Modeldecal sheets 100 and 101 be adapted?

Yes, kind of sort of, I'm going to do my first one as it appeared at Swinderby during the early 1980's, it wears 607Sqn markings which will come from one of those Modeldecal sheets (apparently the markings were added in later life and the particular aircraft never actually served with 607), just need to find some more options which use the other markings on the sheets.

Wez

Edited by Wez
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anyone know if anyone does Irish decals for this one?

Max Decals in sheet 72-001, as I mentioned a few pages ago in this same thread.
Over on the Irishscalemodeller forum some oen contacted Joe Maxwell and he confirmed he will be be bringing out a revised IAC set including the Vampire..

I already have his first set but good news all the same

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I've done my best to rid the world of this travesty, unfortunately I've only been

able to get one. To make matters worst it only came with sheep f........... sorry....

Kiwi decals :shutup:

I thought Ozzies and Kiwis were best mates????

Over here, the New Zealand markings only come with the starter kit. Is that the one you have or can you get the other boxing?

Trevor

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Over on the Irishscalemodeller forum some oen contacted Joe Maxwell and he confirmed he will be be bringing out a revised IAC set including the Vampire..

Thats good news

Julien

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I thought Ozzies and Kiwis were best mates????

Over here, the New Zealand markings only come with the starter kit. Is that the one you have or can you get the other boxing?

Trevor

Starter set, twas all Ive been able to find.

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I thought Ozzies and Kiwis were best mates????

We'll gang up together against you guys & most of the rest of the world, except maybe the Americans, hard to gang up against them when one of the party only has their heels visible from you know where ;) but leave us to our own devices & its game on, sort of like a national passtime. :lol:

Steve

Edited by stevehnz
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Nothing worse that asking a Kiwi if they're Australian - makes the Praxis shockwave look like a wet fart.

Yes there is Jonathan , its asking an Aussie if they're a Kiwi !! eh bro!

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The engineering is very clever - the way the booms link to the wings make it almost impossible to mess up. In fact, mine is sitting with only the boom halves glued together, with everything in almost perfect alignment! I did need to take a little off the rear of the port boom joining piece, but I suspect that was down to the plastic rather than the tooling.

Almost impossible....I thought so too, but they didn't fit for me, or at least didn't fall into place as readily as expected. I wasn't trying to foul it up, honestly! I can't see where I've gone wrong, but with the booms dryfitted the lower wing does not fit properly to the upper half at the outside of the boom, with a large step down. The outer wing is not aligning to the fairings on the boom and the booms are not sitting vertically. I've tried the usual filing and scraping at the joins and adjacent parts, enough to count as more than a reasonable modelling expectation for a new kit. The one thing that did help was slightly opening the gap in the wing for the booms at the front, which allowed the booms to rotate slightly. I shall have another go tonight. It doesn't look to be an unworkable problem, I'm just rather surprised than no-one else seems to have encountered it.

As far as filling unwanted lines, I found that Mr Dissolved Putty worked better than Mr Surfacer 500 or 1200, but suspect that white Milliput and a wet finger would do as well.

PS. After a little more filing and scraping I abandoned dry fitting and glued the booms to the tailplane, then placed the upper wing so as to hold the booms in. (Yes, this is as the instructions have it, but I thought dry fitting first was supposed to be generally advisable....) This looks to have sorted the vertical alignment problem. The upper wing is still only dry fitted to the booms, but looks as though it will go into place properly, and I'll let everything dry before attempting to fit the lower wing

Edited by Graham Boak
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Yes there is Jonathan , its asking an Aussie if they're a Kiwi !! eh bro!

Didn't someone bowl underarm in the last over of a test match or something?

Getting back on topic I aim to compare and contrast the totally unbuildable Airfix thing (lol) with the Aeroclub example in my deep store.

Not yet though as my AMARC (the garage) is rammed with 'stuff' whilst the house gets an MLU....

Trevor

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Gluing the tailbooms and tailplane together to form a rigid unit helped. Yes, this is the way Airfix tell you to do it in the instructions, but ever since learning about Critical Path Analysis I've been a believer in working on different parts of the model at once in order to shorten the overall build time. I suspect I (and others) would have done the same without the formal training, but a point to Airfix anyway.

Placing this unit together with the one-piece upper wing solved the tail alignment - the previous filing may have helped, but that's impossible to prove now without another kit, and the faffing on filling the lines has dampened my enthusiasm for this one let alone another. The key problem with the inboard step turned out to be that the lower wing was rocking over the raised wheel well, so filing this down brought the parts more into line. Again, some of the earlier work may have helped, but I wish I'd thought of that/noticed it sooner. I'm surprised that no else has commented on this.

I hauled out my two part-assembled Heller Vampires, without nasty panel lines, only to discover that the wing roots were covered in filler and there was a step to the rear of the gun panel, so perhaps it's a case of six and two threes.

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I didn't have any problems with mine apart from lining up the main gear leg strut into it's slot in the wing, if I did another I'd leave this part off while glueing the boom in place;

IMG_4653.jpg

Leg and strut location. the boom went in no problem, stayed in place on it's own and I just ran some liquid cement around the edge.

IMG_4654a.jpg

Lower wing glued in place, the gap to the fuselage disappeared with some liquid cement and a bit of pressure.IMG_4664a.jpg

My build here;

http://airfixtributeforum.myfastforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=409&t=37742

Edited by Richard M
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I've not reached the wing-to-pod assembly yet, but don't anticipate any problems. What I had trouble with is the way the lower wing half sits high rather than flush with the flap and aileron. The outer part can be fixed by attacking the two wing mating surfaces, as fairly normal, but where it approaches the boom this doesn't work. The problem I had with the boom alignment came from trying to do too much with loose parts whilst investigating the matter - making the boom unit rigid has solved that aspect. However, that part of the lower wing aft of the wheel well did not sit down without a fair bit of work filing down the height of the wheel well sides.

I'd read a comment about the u/c leg, but thought that was a matter of vulnerability rather than being awkward to fit. I'll bear it in mind, thanks

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For Trumpeter (with their breakdown) to do the T.11 would mean a whole new kit where Ali could make a new nose forwards of the firewall and new fins. There is some serious braking going on with those NZ Vampires!

John

John

RE your last point.....maybe that's why the gentlemen in the penultimate photo has one of those "phew, we got away with that" looks as he holds his head in his hands whilst walking away...!

Tiger331

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Bugga!, FAA on 72172 & RNZAF on 72173. Thats two sheets & at least two more kits I'll be wanting, maybe more once I see the illustrations for them. :(

Steve.

Most of the options are shown in the Warpaint book, don't be sad though Steve, it just gives you an excuse to buy more Vampires - surely a cause for celebration!?

Wez

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Most of the options are shown in the Warpaint book, don't be sad though Steve, it just gives you an excuse to buy more Vampires - surely a cause for celebration!?

Wez

I was speaking on behalf of my wallet, its thrown a sulk & refusing to open just now. :D

Steve.

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