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Folland Gnat T.1 1:48


Mike

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Folland Gnat T.1
1:48 Airfix


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The Gnat was a developmental evolution of the earlier Midge that Folland had worked on without Government sponsorship as a small light-weight fighter of simple construction that would be easily made without massively specialised tooling. The Gnat kept this ethos, and although it didn't find favour with the Ministry of Supply as a fighter, it did find a niche as a jet trainer. Elsewhere it was used as a fighter and trainer, but its most high profile use that gave it a lasting place in the heart of many aviation enthusiasts, was as the aircraft of choice for the Red Arrows until their replacement with Hawk T.1s in 1979.

As a trainer with the RAF it served from 1965, allowing pilots to get up to speed with fast jets before being streamed into their eventual speciality. At the end of 1978 the drawdown of Gnat airframes reached critical mass, with the unwanted aircraft being sold on to other operators, private or otherwise. India built single seat F.1 Gnats under license as the HAL Ajeet, as well as the more familiar two-seat trainers, although they were quite different to those used by the RAF.

There are still plenty of Gnats on display, and three are often seen in the skies at UK airshows, which is a lovely sight, especially as one flies in the Yellow Jacks, another as a Red Arrow, and the third in trainer red/white/grey.

The Kit
1:48 modellers have been waiting for years for a mainstream model of the Gnat, and with the exception of the beloved Aeroclub multimedia kit that I've had the pleasure of building, we were a bit left behind. When Airfix announced the retooling of their 1:72 kit a couple of years ago, I suspect there was more than a little jealously of our smaller scaled cousins, but that was assuaged when the 1:48 kit was announced last year. Fast forward to today, and the new kit has started to reach the shelves, with a couple of build threads starting to appear already on the forum. I picked up my review sample on Saturday from Airfix's stand, and having perused the sprues on the day, watched the builds begin, and looked in the slim red box at the three grey sprues, I'm enthusiastic to say the least. Along with the grey sprues is a nice clear sprue, a set of crisp decals, and one of Airfix's new style instruction booklets, which has spot colour and greyscale throughout.

 

 

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It's a lovely looking aircraft, and Airfix have done some very nice work in replicating its lines, with clever moulding techniques, fine panel lines, and detail that is thoroughly modern. Construction begins with the cockpit, which has a hump added through a small hole in the rear floor, which is the roof of the nose gear bay, complete with some very neat interior ribbing. The cockpit floor includes the side consoles with throttle quadrants and other instrument detail moulded in, plus some raise floor panels. The rudders are separate parts, as are the front and rear bulkheads, after which the instrument panels can be added to their slots in the floor along with the control columns front & rear. If I might have a moment to whine about the instrument panels, I feel that they could be done better in this day and age. The instruments are depicted as 3D raised line drawings, and have no bezel or panel details that would be seen on the real thing. There are decals to fill the instrument faces, but as these areas are on full display under a large clear canopy, they should have been better. Speaking of the canopy, you get a two-part open, and single closed canopy to use, and the clarity is superb, with minimal distortion. I will be using the (doubtless) forthcoming Eduard Zoom! to pretty up my instrument panels, as I like the extra realism without too much effort on my part. The ejection seats are multi-part, made from eight parts each, with a duplicate seat cushion with no seatbelts moulded in for use when you install the supplied three-part pilot. These are Folland's own lightweight 4GT/1 ejection seats, which have a prominent frame that extends up behind the head-box, and had a bit of a reputation for injuring the knees of taller pilots in use. The pilot's seat is added to a bulkhead before being installed in the cockpit, while the instructor's seat slots straight onto the rails moulded into the rear bulkhead.

The fuselage's clean lines are spoiled on the sprues by the lack of intake trunking from its lip to the trailing edge of the wing. This is a wise move however, leading to easier joints to clean up, and easy accommodation of the full-depth intake trunking that's included with the kit. These curve around to pass the main gear bays, which also have some nice detail moulded in, which is certainly sufficient for most modellers, and seen through only a small opening after completion. The cockpit is installed in the starboard fuselage half, as is the two-piece exhaust, which has some nice lip detail moulded in, and an engine rear to cap the inner end. The front of the engine is slotted into the intake trunking end, a small nose bay is added, and the fuselage can be closed up. The instructor's coaming can be added at this stage to cover the void between their compartments, to which the clear blast screen is added toward the end of the build. Later in the build the upper portion of the nose is added, and if you elect to leave this bay open, a small equipment cluster is added to the inside of the panel, the nose light is attached to the front, and a tiny blade antenna is added to a recess on the roof. Sealing the bay omits the extra part, and requires you to remove the hinges from the panel that hold it in the correct position when posed open.

 

 

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The wings are full-span on the upper part, and have separate flaps and ailerons, with two-part lower wings. If you are installing the slipper tanks, you'll need to drill the flashed over holes in the lower wing, and once joined the wing is laid on the top of the fuselage, completing the spine that merges into the root of the vertical fin of the tail. If you look closely at the spine you will see a fractional mis-match between the panel lines running from each wing, but as it is so small (infinitesimal, actually), it will probably disappear under paint, or you could knock it back with a scriber. With careful fitting, a clean seam should be relatively easy to achieve, and the flying surfaces can be added now, or left off until later if you are offsetting them. Each surface is thin, so made from one part each, so just clean the mould lines, and you're done. The starboard side of the fin is a separate part, and attaching it captures the rudder between the hinge points, so it can be left loose or posed to one side or the other. The elevators fix using the usual tab & slot method, and should be at 90o to the fin. Their flying surfaces are moulded in, so some cutting will be needed if you want to move them. The oft-seen slipper tanks that are suspended beneath the wings are made of three parts, with an insert that covers the cylindrical bottom section where the access panels are, and the nose cone slotting onto the end. Some slide-moulding has been done here, and fettling with plenty of test-fitting will be the order of the day to improve the fit and avoid using filler.

The landing gear can be posed deployed or retracted for flight, with separate parts for each eventuality to make the modeller's life easier. The in-flight nose gear cover has a fin on the inside surface to prevent it from dropping back into the bay, which is good to see. If you are deploying the landing gear, the legs are all single parts, and just need some lead wire to depict the hosing, although little will be seen of it once complete. The wheels are nicely done, with the two main wheels having separate outer hubs and a small hint of sag to the tyres under the weight of the airframe, but nothing excessive. The twin nose-wheels are one part each, and echo the slight sag of the mains. All the bay doors are provided with large attachment points, which should give a strong joint, and the main bay doors have rib detail too. A scrap diagram shows the correct angles from the rear, and another shows the location of the main bay door "spat".

 

 

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Clear parts are provided for the wingtip lights, the prominent nose-mounted landing-light, and of course the canopy, which as mentioned earlier is supplied as a single closed part, and a two-part open option, which is held open with a pair of hinge tabs at the rear, where it meets the fuselage spine. The large pitot probe and a few small blade aerials are the final tasks with the build, and these are shown from the front to aid correct positioning.

Markings
Only two sets of markings are supplied with the kit, but as they're such iconic trainer markings, and this is a 1:48 Gnat, I'm not going to complain! From the box you can build one of the following:

 

 

  • XP500 No.4 Training Flying School, RAF Valley, Anglesey Wales, 1973 – Red lower fuselage, upper wings and spine, while upper fuselage, fin and wing stripes, grey lower wings, and black anti-glare panel.
  • XM709 Central Flying School, RAF Little Rissington, Gloucs., England, 1964 – Silver mid fuselage & wings, elevators & rudder, Fluorescent fire orange wingtips, rear and front fuselage, black anti-glare panel.

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As well as the decals for the instrument panels, there are numerous stencils provided for the entire fuselage, and Airfix have thoughtfully provided the XM stencils under the wings and on the fuselage with a silver background to save you from masking and painting your own. Decal quality is excellent, with good registration, colour density and sharpness on my review sample. Even the smallest of stencils are legible, although if your eyes are as bad as mine, you'll need to use magnification to read them!

Conclusion
Superb stuff! There's little bad to say about this kit, and it looks to be an easy build, with lots of moulding & design techniques used to assist in the job. Don't throw away your Aeroclub kit, as they're still pretty good (especially given their vintage), but if you're in the market for a really nice Gnat in 1:48, you now have an easily available, mainstream kit that ticks all the boxes of detail & quality. I imagine we'll be getting a Red Arrows and Yellow Jacks boxing along the way, as it would be a shame not to really.

Airfix are a different company from the one that went into receivership some years ago, in so many more ways than just a case of ownership. They are young and vibrant, with a raft of new and exciting products, and have a watchful eye on re-vamping the back catalogue. Now they have upscaled the 1:72 Gnat that made us 1:48 modellers so jealous, could we ask for the Blenheims to be done next please? We appreciate it's not just a case of sliding the scale bar on your CAD software a bit to the right, but if you could put the hours in to make it happen, we promise to buy lots.

Thanks for Lydia from Hornby for handing me the sample, and for putting up with my babbling.

Extremely highly recommended.

 

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Review sample courtesy of
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Really great review, Mike! I had two on back order from Wonderland, but I still wanted it now! So I opened up the wallet at Telford and I'm glad I did! It's at the top of the pile right now, along with the Heritage 1/48 Chipmunk and Fly 1/48 Jet Provost T.Mk.5.

I echo your comments re. the Blenheim. It's about time we had that family in mainstream plastic!

Lydia / Hannah / Daryl, if you're reading this, I promise to buy loads too!

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If you want more options then S & M Models do a very useful sheet with markings for just about any Gnat including XP505. Chatting to the very nice man at Telford reveals they have a conversion kit for this beast on the way soon.

I'm just a happy customer BTW

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Agree with your comments Mike and in particular on the manner with which the instrument panel detail has been rendered. Only other thing I can add is my disappointment at finding only one pilot in the kit when I'd rather have two for a two-seat machine.

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Useful review, as usual.

As I don't believe Airfix will release next an F.1, even less an FR.1, let's hope that the aftermarket God will have a close look at that kit with some conversion sets in mind.

Well, the aftermarket God would have to release a new kit more than a conversion, AFAIK...

You might keep the wheels and the landing gear legs, maybe.

Sebastien

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Did you ordered it from France?

I ordered it from eHattons.

I paid something like £13.5 including postage to France.

I'll buy another one from Gilles at Master194 (both schemes are sexy as hell, so...).

HTH,

S.

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Read your review yesterday Mike. :thumbsup: I liked it so much I've ordered directly from Airfix today...maybe this will be my first straight build. :whistle:

Graham

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It is a lovely little kit and I look forward to starting mine.

Mike - I am glad that you said what you did about the new Airfix. The last few years have seen some exceptional new releases with the Javelin and Sea Vixen not to mention the recent Spitfires in both 1/48 and 1/72. Good to see that they have looked at the high points of their back catalogue also - 1/48 Lightning, Seafire 46/47. And yes, a Blenheim in 1/48 would be very welcome.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Well,

I might be tempted! This little aircraft I flew, as a student in 1973, and it scared the b'jeeze out of me although I did pass the course and assessed as suitable to go to the Lightning! So, here is a question: there are 2 blade aerials on the spine of a Gnat, what are they for?

To model a Gnat of the 70's you will need to give the panel just behind the cockpit a good battering as it was the 'normal practice' to thump this if the starting system didn't kick in, the trusty (or not) Palouse. Oh, for those of you in any doubt of my credibility the acronym for hydraulic failure in 1973 was: STUPRECCC ! The AC/DC failure was CUBSTAN.

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Well,

I might be tempted! This little aircraft I flew, as a student in 1973, and it scared the b'jeeze out of me although I did pass the course and assessed as suitable to go to the Lightning! So, here is a question: there are 2 blade aerials on the spine of a Gnat, what are they for?

To model a Gnat of the 70's you will need to give the panel just behind the cockpit a good battering as it was the 'normal practice' to thump this if the starting system didn't kick in, the trusty (or not) Palouse. Oh, for those of you in any doubt of my credibility the acronym for hydraulic failure in 1973 was: STUPRECCC ! The AC/DC failure was CUBSTAN.

Good tip TeeELL, will apply that to my one this evening, so what did the two acronyms stand for?

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Although it looked as if there were two aerials on the spine of a Gnat, (plus one on the lower fuselage, aft of the rear cockpit), the 'aerial' immediately aft of the canopy was in fact a 'dummy' aerial.

IIRC: This dummy 'aerial' was in this position to 'straighten' the airflow disturbance caused by the actual upper UHF aerial across the fin and rudder.

HTH. Cheers, Brian

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