Revell Bristol F.2B Fighter 1:48

[Shar2]

Bristol F.2B Fighter

1:48 Revell

History

The Bristol F.2 Fighter was a British two-seat biplane fighter and reconnaissance aircraft of the First World War flown by the Royal Flying Corps. It is often simply called the Bristol Fighter or popularly the "Brisfit" or "Biff". Despite being a two-seater, the F.2B proved to be an agile aircraft that was able to hold its own against opposing single-seat fighters. Having overcome a disastrous start to its career, the F.2B's solid design ensured that it remained in military service into the 1930s, and surplus aircraft were popular in civil aviation.

After only 52 F.2As were built production switched over to what became the definitive Bristol Fighter, the Bristol Type 14 F.2B which had first flown on 25 October 1916. The first 150 or so were powered by the Falcon I or Falcon II engine but the remainder were equipped with the 275 hp (205 kW) Falcon III engine and could reach a maximum speed of 123 mph (198 km/h). The F.2B was over 10 mph (16 km/h) faster than the F.2A and was three minutes faster at reaching 10,000 ft (3,000 m).

F.2Bs often carried a second Lewis gun on the rear cockpit mounting, although observers found the weight of the twin Lewis gun mounting difficult to handle in the high altitudes at which combat increasingly took place in the last year of the war. A number of attempts were made to add forward firing Lewis guns on a Foster mounting or similar on the upper wing - either instead of, or in addition to the Vickers gun. Unfortunately this caused interference with the pilot's compass, which was mounted on the trailing edge of the upper wing. Some F.2Bs were fitted with a Lewis gun offset top starboard to minimise this effect.

The Model

The kit comes in a nice looking top opening box, with a picture of an aircraft in the process of dropping bombs, whilst another aircraft chases off the opposition in the background. On opening, all the parts are fairly well protected in a single poly bag. The four sprues of parts in light brown styrene are nicely moulded with no flash and only one or two pips on some of the smaller parts. Strangely there is no clear sprue as the aircraft definitely had a windscreen, albeit a small one.

The cockpit is a complex affair with several sub assemblies constructed first before the whole lot is brought together. Beginning with the cockpit floor, onto which the rudder bar and joystick are attached, followed by the engine priming pump handle, front bulkhead and fuel tank. The engine exhausts are then shown to be painted up and addition parts fitted. The instrument panel will need some careful painting and the instrument decals added. Onto the panel the bracing struts and machine gun are attached. The fuselage interior has some nicely moulded representation of the internal structure will also need to be carefully painted to bring out the details. The moulded internal detail is complemented by the fitting of the spare Vickers drum magazines, various pump handles and fittings along with the exhaust panels. Before the fuselage can be closed up the cockpit sub-assembly is fitted, followed by the pilots seat and supporting structure over the fuel tank, the gunners seat pad, rear bulkhead and instrument sub-assembly. With the fuselage closed up the exhausts can now be attached, as can the scarf attachment panel ring over the gunners position. The pilots windscreen frame and the external control fixtures for the rudder bar.

The horizontal tail plane is then fitted out with the two elevators then the fin and rudder is also attached. The whole tail assembly is then attached to the rear of the aircraft. Moving forward the lower wing struts are attached to the fuselage and put to one side to set firmly. The upper wing is then assembled with the addition of the pilots compass, gunsight, ailerons and their associated control horns. The lower is also assembled at this point, with the addition of the ailerons, control horns, what look like either grab rails or representations of the control lines. The lower wing is then fitted to the fuselage via the struts fitted earlier. The cabane and inter-plane struts are attached to the fuselage and lower wing respectively onto which the upper wing can then be fitted.

The undercarriage struts and axle are fitted to the lower forward fuselage, and the wheels attached. To the rear the tail skid, with bracing struts is attached to the rear fuselage just forward of the tailplane. There three pairs of bomb rails fitted to the lower wing centre section onto which the modeller can choose to fit either the two 100lb bombs, (on the centreline), or eight 25lb bombs, four per side on the outer rails. The engine front is now assembled, with the fitting of optional style radiators which are surrounded by the nose cowl and the two bladed propeller is attached via a pin passed through from the rear of the radiator. The completed assembly is then fitted to the fuselage. The single Vickers machine gun, scarf ring and elevating fittings are assembled and attached to the gunners position, completing the build. Well, perhaps not quite complete, as there is an awful lot of rigging on this aircraft and it would be a waste to build the model without it. Take great care to read and digest the rigging diagrams, which are quite complex, but should be ok if taken one step at a time.

Decals

The decal sheet has been printed in Italy, so no doubt that it’s by Cartograf. So naturally you’d expect them to be pretty good, and they are. Apart from the twin fuselage bands there is very little sign of carrier film. The decals appear to be nice and thin, slightly matt, with good opacity and in register. The blue of the roundels and fin flash is nicely muted as per the orders of the day. The modeller has the option of building one of two aircraft.

• Bristol F.2B, C=4630, No. 62 Sqn RFC, Spring 1918
• Bristol F.2B, B1134, “19”, No 35. Sqn RFC, France, February 1918

Conclusion

This is a great looking kit and Revell have done themselves proud with providing enough detail for all but the most ardent modellers with AMS. It will build into quite a reasonably sized model and should be a great addition to any collection, especially fully rigged, which I’m sure all modellers who buy it will be diligent enough to do.

Please note we have walkround photos of the Brisfit HERE

Revell model kits are available from all good toy and model retailers. For further information visit

[marky sparky]

Eduard rebox. Very nice looking kit though and can't wait to start mine.

[Dave Swindell]

Looks like the Eduard kit reboxed.

[Shar2]

Aah! yes it probably is, as Revell have reboxed a couple of other Eduard kits. I thought the sprues looked familiar.

[crookedmouth]

I built the Eduard Brisfit many years ago. Yeah - it does look suspiciously Eduard-ish to me.

It's a beauty of a kit but if any WW1 aircraft was worthy of being called "Stringbag" this was possibly it. Rigging her was... fun (for a given value of "fun"). The one step that really DID give me problems was setting the undercarriage up so that the wings sat level. In fact one reason I stalled was because she ended up looking like she'd blown a tyre.

Also, the undercarriage struts are very delicate where they join the fuselage.

Finally, I recall (perhaps imperfectly) that if you want to build it with the engine cowlings ON, you have to leave the engine off.

Edited March 10, 2014 by crookedmouth

[wyverns4]

If you look closely at the first picture, illustrating the fuselage half's and many other interesting pieces, in the top left-hand corner just after the sprue straightens out into a horizontal direction you will see a thicker oblong. A vertical sprue joins this oblong from below. Look closely and you will see the name Eduard.

I have several in the stash monster and will 'probably', (and that is all the lovely Yvonne needs to know ), pick up a couple more when back home in Blighty. It can be slightly daunting to assemble but gives a first rate model with a bit of care. Rigging is a bit of a , but after rigging this airframe everything else is a doddle. But on the plus side there are lots of different and unusual markings that can be applied beyond the realm of P.C.10 and C.D.L.

Christian the Married and exiled to africa who will be home in 17 weeks, not that I am counting...

Edited March 10, 2014 by wyverns4

[Shar2]

That's the trouble with looking too closely at the parts and not the sprues Christian.

[wyverns4]

That's the trouble with looking too closely at the parts and not the sprues Christian.

'Aint that the truth!