Special Hobby Fairey Firefly Mk.4/5 Korea - 1:48

[Mike]

Fairey Firefly Mk.4/5 Korea
1:48 Special Hobby

The Firefly was designed as a replacement to the uninspiring Fulmar, and was originally conceived as a two-seat heavy fighter, although it progressed to being much more than that after WWII. The Mark.I reached service in 1944 using the powerful Griffon engine to give it a respectable 316mph top speed and the ability to carry a rack of unguided rockets under each wing for maritime and ground attack duties. After the war the Mark.IV progressed further with the aid of a more powerful variant of the Griffon that gave almost 600hp more power to drive a four-bladed prop, and the chin-mounted radiator moved to the leading edges of the wing roots to improve aerodynamic performance.

The Mark.5 added improved avionics and power-operated folding wings, and some Mark.4s were also fitted with this useful device that sped up deployment and stowing on a busy deck. The Mk.5 could be quickly converted between roles to provide support as a fighter, reconnaissance, night fighter or anti-submarine, so became a workhorse of the carrier fleet of Britain and other countries following some export success. It remained in service in later guises until the 50s when it was replaced in fleet service by another Fairey aircraft, the Gannet, which took over the anti-submarine and reconnaissance roles, leaving the dedicated jet fighters to handle the rest.

The Kit
This edition covers the Mark.4 and 5 as it appeared during the Korean War, where it saw extensive service performing anti-shipping and ground attack duties. The box is standard Special Hobby with a blue/white background and an attractive painting of a heavily-armed Firefly over dense jungle. Inside is a re-sealable bag with seven sprues of various sizes in grey styrene, a bag of resin parts, another of clear parts, and lastly a bag containing decals and a small fret of Photo-Etch (PE) brass. The instructions consist of three and a half sheets of A4 folded into a booklet, and includes a greyscale painting guide that uses Gunze Sangyo paint codes as the key. A QR Code on the painting guide leads to a web page where you can view a colour version of the instructions, including the painting guide, which is a nice addition if you have QR reading software installed on your PC/Tablet/Mobile.

The styrene in the box is typical of Special Hobby, and has a very shiny surface and fine engraved panel lines that are together reminiscent of Classic Airframes models, if you remember those. Whilst not a short run kit, it is also not a state of the art moulding, but somewhere in between, although the detail is very good overall. There is no flash evident on the parts, although some clean-up will be necessary to remove occasional minor imperfections in the surfaces of the parts. As with all models, test fitting and adjusting parts will yield better results than just gluing the parts together, so bear it in mind especially when dealing with large assemblies such as the wings and fuselage. There are no part numbers given on the sprues, so you will need to refer back to the sprue diagrams on the inside cover of the instruction manual when it's not immediately obvious where the part can be found.

Construction begins with the pilot and navigator's stations, which are separate within the fuselage. The pilot's floor has fore and aft bulkheads added, plus a seat with cushioned back attached to the rear bulkhead along with some additional controls, while the rudder pedals and control column fix to holes in the floor. The navigator's cockpit is built up the same way, but with a deck around his position that has equipment boxes moulded in, and a gap for the addition of a compass on the port side, plus a head-rest behind his seat. The sidewalls of the two cockpits are moulded into the insides of the fuselage, but are augmented by a relatively large number of small parts that are added before the cockpits are added. The pilot's instrument panel has raised detail moulded in, plus a separate compass and gunsight, with a decal provided for the instrument faces on a separate postage stamp-sized sheet. The panel attaches directly to the fuselage, and the two cockpits are added along with the resin exhaust stacks and the tail gear bay, after which the fuselage can be closed up. The smooth chin has a small intake just under the prop, which is built up from an intake and backing piece to avoid being able to see through into the cockpit area, and in the belly of the fuselage, another insert is added with an arrestor hook recess engraved in. You'll need to test-fit and fettle both these parts to obtain the best fit and finish, to avoid having to use any/much filler to make good the seams.

With the fuselage closed up, the attention turns to the wings, which have a full-width lower that receives a large slab of resin in the shape of the gear bays, with rib and ancillary equipment moulded in. You will need to trim down some ejector pin turrets that are present inside the wing parts, but the part should then fit snugly within the lower wing, held in the correct location by raised bars around the bay. The wing mounted radiator faces are added to the front of the wing, with separate splitter vanes, and the whole is enclosed by adding the two upper wing parts, after which the radiator fairings are added in front. The wing is quite thick, so shouldn't have any issues with accommodating the resin gear bays, but do check this before you apply glue, as the bay roof is incredibly thin, so can't be ground down. The completed wing is then offered up the underside of the fuselage, and will hopefully be a good fit if you have taken care with construction. The rudder is moulded into the fuselage with the fin, but the elevators are each made of two separate parts that fit into slots in the sides of the fuselage. None of the flying surfaces are separate from the wings or tail, so if you plane on showing them offset, you have some work ahead of you.

The landing gear consists of a main strut with two retraction braces at 90^o to eachother, and has a separate two-piece oleo-scissor link that is added between the two leg casings. Each main wheel is built up from two halves with nice hub detail, and you will need to take a little material off the contact patch to give the impression of weight if you like that sort of thing. The bay doors are captive to the gear legs, and have small brackets added to their top before being glued to the legs, while a larger outer door attaches to the outer edge of the bay, resting against the leg. The tail wheel is retractable, and operates through closed doors, which are added earlier in the build. The yoke and wheel snap together relying on the flexibility of the styrene, and fit through the hole in the doors into the bay roof inside, as evidenced by the scrap diagram in the instructions.

Completion of the airframe is near at hand, requiring only the cannon fairings, some probes on the underside, a clear cover to the wing mounted landing light, and the clear parts, which are thin and clear, with well-defined framework, which isn't too heavy. Each canopy is moulded as a single part, so you will need to do some careful cutting if you plan to pose either of them open, which is a shame given the detail in the cockpits. The large four-bladed prop is made up from keyed blades that fit onto the back plate, with a retaining pin through the centre and the spinner added to the front. Careful gluing could leave you with a spinning prop if that's a thing for you.

The Firefly could carry both slipper-type semi-conformal drop tanks on the outer wings, with a stack of four rockets mounted on plates inboard. Their mounting points are noted on the diagram, but take care when gluing them as there is plenty of room for error here. The fuel tanks build up from two halves, while the rockets are moulded in pairs that are attached to a PE base-plate side-by-side. The instructions do give measurements for the rocket plate from the centreline of the wing and inboard of the leading edge of the wing, so it might be as well to mark their position before painting to make the job of attaching them less error-prone later on. An old-school aerial mast is positioned just forward of the navigator's canopy, and will need to first drill out the marked hole, which the instructions show at a slight angle, then run some invisible mending thread to depict the aerial itself, plus the fly-lead into the cockpit that runs down from the top of the mast. The other end secures on the leading edge of the tail level with the top of the hinge indent of the rudder.

Markings
The Firefly didn't wear too much in the way of varied markings, but it does look striking in Extra Dark Sea Grey over sky, which all four decal options wear. All four also wear wing and fuselage black and white "invasion stripes" as theatre markings, with only one having them straddling the wing roundel, the other three wearing them just inboard. From the box you can model one of the following:

• Fr.Mk.5 WT488 R-205 Pilot Lt. JFK "Sean" McGrail, 821 Sq., HMS Glory, Korean Peninsula coastal waters, March 1953.
• FR.MK.5 WB351/K-202 RAN 817 Sq., HMAS Sydney, Korean Peninsula coastal waters, March 1951.
• Fr.Mk.5 WB416 T-235 810 Sq., HMS Theseus, Korean Peninsula coastal waters, 1951.
• Fr.Mk.5 WB382 R-206 812 Sq., HMS Glory, Korean Peninsula coastal waters, July 1951.
  

The decals are printed by AVIprint in the Czech Republic, and are in good register, but the smaller black stencils appear a little fuzzy under magnification, although they are still legible. The roundels have separate red centres to ensure that if they're offset, it's your fault, and all the underwing codes have been separated to accommodate the gear bay doors, so you'll need to scratch your head to apply them correctly to the doors if you are posing the landing gear down. There are no decals for the theatre striping, which is just as well, as they can be difficult to get to fit correctly, so a little extra masking will be in your future.

Conclusion
A very nice package that should build up into a creditable replica of the much-loved, but somewhat neglected Firefly in this scale. Parts clean-up will be important, as is test-fitting and adjustment, but you could say that about almost any kit, even these days. The schemes are samey, but equally striking and are reminiscent of the scheme worn by the flying example that graced the airshows here in the UK until her sad loss in an accident.

Highly recommended.

Review sample courtesy of

[avro683]

Thanks for the review Mike, I've got fond memories of building the Airfix kit in a previous life so I'm pleased to see it available in a larger scale. Definitely one for the stash.

[NAVY870]

Not a bad kit at all and well worth the wait.

I did a review of the earlier Mk V version on the AMI site based on my years experience maintaining the old dear.

http://www.aussiemodeller.com.au/pages/Reviews/acft%20kit/Long_SHFireflyMkV.html

Edited January 12, 2014 by NAVY870

[Troy Smith]

Not a bad kit at all and well worth the wait.

I did a review of the earlier Mk V version on the AMI site based on my years experience maintaining the old dear.

http://www.aussiemodeller.com.au/pages/Reviews/acft%20kit/Long_SHFireflyMkV.html

Very handy review Steve, lots of helpful information and photos and drawings.

If anyone is taken by the Target Tow scheme in the photos Steve posted, Aeroclub do one of these winches in 1/48th, a Ruston type G. I recently got one of John

Is the things under the fuselage in this shot

http://www.aussiemodeller.com.au/Images/Review/SpecialHobby_misc/Firefly%20Mk%20V/Long49_S.jpg

Silver uppers, black and yellow undersides, Australian roundels....

oh, Steve notes this

The wheels have reasonable hub detail but the tyre appears to be slightly too large in diameter and does not have the correct block tread pattern.

Barracudacals does a set of replacements,

http://www.hannants.co.uk/product/BCR48004

The Grand Phoenix and AZ Models 1:48 Firefly I kits do not include the late style wheels. Detailed and accurate, these 32' wheels are also perfect for postwar Hawker Tempest, Hawker Sea Fury, DH Hornet, DH de Havilland Sea Hornet, and Firebrand models in 1:48 scale.

HTH

T

[colin]

It's almost worth buying just for that lovely box art

[snapper_city]

It's almost worth buying just for that lovely box art

Ditto. I might just buy this for the box art.

[NAVY870]

The later marks of Firefly used a wider tyre than those in the Barra set, the hubs are wider than those fitted to

the Sea Fury (ask me how I know!!)

Hopefully Roy will release the correct late late wheels, and a decent prop to replace the woeful kit prop.

[Julien]

The later marks of Firefly used a wider tyre than those in the Barra set, the hubs are wider than those fitted to

the Sea Fury (ask me how I know!!)

Hopefully Roy will release the correct late late wheels, and a decent prop to replace the woeful kit prop.

Go on then how do you know?

[Radleigh]

That looks like a tasty kit.

[Nobby57]

Go on then how do you know?

Well I'm thinking that Albatross has got a lot to do with it Julien; you rascal!

[NAVY870]

Go on then how do you know?

Whilst moving VX-388 around the shed (At the Thomas Collection) she decided to amuse herself by detonating a tyre half way across the shed.

Fear not we thought, the boss lady had got a set of Sea Fury tyres donated so we will just bung one of those on.

This is the point where I discovered the difference in wheel widths, a Fury wheel will sit on the Firebox stub axle but there remains about 40mm of inconvenient axle poking out the end, it looked like it would be a tad wobbly even with the nut done right up!. "Oh goodness that's a bit of a bother" I believe was the comment at the time.

Turned out the tube had rotted out and when it let go it popped the bead on the hub. I fixed it with a light truck tube that's worked out quiet well.

It should be noted that since there was actual work involved with the move and wheel repair, Danni was nowhere to be seen!

[Nobby57]

Thanks for the insight and the advice Steve.

After reading the review (Thank you Mike) and your input, I bought a kit yesterday to go with the Korean War Mk.1.

So Steve your gen is invaluable, as the FR Mk.5 will become part of a tribute pair to the memory of the 'Glory Boys', and I want to get them 'right' if I can.

Furthermore, I can't wait for your forthcoming book so all the best with that.

Thanks once more,

Graham

[Julien]

It should be noted that since there was actual work involved with the move and wheel repair, Danni was nowhere to be seen!

Thanks, great story.

[Nobby57]

Thanks, great story.

I couldn't say that J! What would the neighbours say? But out of deference to you, I bought a F-8E yesterday at the FAA model show...I'm cooking up something special: 'Egg Plane Julien' I think I'll call it.

Edited February 16, 2014 by Nobby57

[Julien]

Thanks....I think!

[Nobby57]

It is a compliment funnily enough, but, before I derail totally, I'll apologise...but I did, and I shall make this F8-E, and it was because I noted the Crusader; and I know, from what I've read so far, you're a good egg - mind you, the thought of making an egg-plane out of a perfectly good 1/72 F8-E, even if it lacks specific detail, fills me with horror too!

Edited February 17, 2014 by Nobby57

[NAVY870]

For those that enjoyed the VX-388 tyre popping story perhaps this war story may interest.

Back in the early days of the RAN Historic Flight we restored a target tug mark 6, WD-826 back to airworthy. She looked quite

the tart in EDSG and slate green. Not 100% accurate for a RAN aircraft as that scheme was only used on the loaner aircraft from the RN during

operations in Korea but what the hell.

We had been booked to take the Firebox, S-2 and Dak to the Moorabin airshow but the mighty Griffon in the Firebox decided it wanted to stay home and refused to generate full boost. After many hours of head scratching, tweaking the boost control unit and innumerable blasts down runway 21 at not quite full squirt we decided to start from scratch.

The boost control adjusting screw was duely screwed right in and the thought was to go from there and wind it progressively back until the right numbers were acheived. So the CO takes her out, opens the tap right up and the aircraft immediately thinks its turned into an A-4 instead of a Firebox and proceeds to launch itself into the wild blue. The boss was somewhat surprised to say the least (the cockpit did smell a mite stuffy afterwards) It turned out we had managed to wind it up into "emergency" boost which tends to turn the Griffon into a rocket.

The worst part? As he taxies back in and gives her a boot full of left pedal the tail wheel tyre departed the hub with an appalling loud boom.

I believe a certain officers flight suit needing a good scrub afterwards.

[Nobby57]

I love anecdotes like this...I can see it playing out with every word and chuckling at the vision. Thanks Steve.

I finally purchased one of these kits for £20 at the FAA model show last weekend. Looks beautiful.

Edited February 22, 2014 by Nobby57

[k5054nz]

What a gorgeous kit! Thanks for the review - I think I've got to find one for the stash.