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1/72nd Sword Vultee Vanguard


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In 1938 Vultee were engaged in developing a range of aircraft that shared some common components (eg rear fuselage, wing panels) and tooling. One of these aircraft became the Vultee BT13 Valiant trainer and another, the model 48, eventually became the Vanguard fighter. The Model 48 first flew in September 1939 and seemed to be aimed at the export market. Performance wise it was a bit faster than the Hurricane, but had a lower ceiling. 140 of a modified version were ordered by Sweden to bolster its obsolescent fighter forces in 1940, but before deliveries began the US Government embargoed them. It was then proposed that the British could use them as fighter trainers in Canada and about four were allegedly finished in British markings. This also fell through and a handful were used as trainers by the US with 129 being sent to China, where they saw some combat. Information on the web or in print is limited to a handful of photos that seem to crop up all over the place and some fairly short pieces of text.

The model is from the 1/72nd Sword kit that was released as a short run kit in 1998 and I think I bought it at that years Scale Model World, which shows the speed at which I work through my stash  and is the same kit that AZ Models released in 2008 so far as I am aware. The kit has is mostly injection moulded with reasonably fine surface detail with a resin interior and exhaust and some photoetch for u/c doors, instrument panel (with film instruments) etc. and two vacform canopies with well-defined frames. Like most sort run of the time there is a lack of finesse in some of the moulding of the smaller parts with some flash. The prop hub suffered badly in this respect and rather than try cleaning it up to attach the separate blades, I found a suitable prop in the spares box and shortened the blades to match those in the kit.

Building the kit did not produce any real difficulties for me. Being short run there were no locating pins so holes were drilled in the fuselage and tail surfaces to accept brass rodding to give some strength to the butt joints, the trailing edges of the wings and tail needed a bit of thinning. The wings being a three-part affair with a one-piece lower wing tip to tip and two upper halves. The wheel wells needed boxing in and the location hole for the undercarriage legs was just a shallow dimple that needed drilling out. The fuselage edges sanded to produce a good join and amazingly the resin cockpit interior fitted with only a bit of fettling. The only part that needed some serious work was the wing fuselage joint, but I have built mainstream kits that were a worse fit. The vacform canopy once trimmed went on alright, helped by very clear frame lines. I am convinced that the way to deal with vacform canopies is to make sure they are cut with a new blade and are masked to a) protect the canopy and B) to give a clearly defined cutting line. They also need patience as I have found that even a relatively small amount of trimming can make a big difference in the fit.

The paint work caused some difficulties in terms of interior colours. I found one colour phot of the prototype being assembled that seemed to show a dark green colour being used and went with that. The undercarriage doors and wheel wells were painted in Zinc Chromate Yellow as that looked a possibility from the photos. The camouflage colours were a lightened version of Tamiya Sky and Humbrol acrylic 29 for the Dark Earth and  116 for the Dark Green. Looks slightly different if you place it next to something in MAP Temperate Land Scheme, but not very. Decals came from old Modeldecal sheets as the kit decals were out of register and a bit bright and the serials fell to pieces.

Hope you like it

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Very neat little model of a not-so-glorious airplane!

 

I'd have guessed that the prop blades would've been painted black with yellow tips. A natural metal prop in a standard British scheme looks a bit odd. At least the back side of the blades would almost certainly be black in order not to blind the pilot with sun reflexes, don't you think?

 

Nice work on a kit that's not of the shake 'n' bake type!

 

Kind regards,

 

Joachim

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From the photos I have seen, the aircraft I have modelled had a natural metal prop. They are definitely staged publicity shots  and I doubt the aircraft flew like that. The photos I have seen of the aircraft later in their careers had painted prop blades. 

My guess is that a newly finished airframe was rolled out for some official ceremony and photos and a prop added for that purpose.The airframe and prop look brand new and I have never  seen a photo of a Vanguard in RAF markings in the air. From what I read only four aircraft were ever finished in British markings and the idea of using them in Canada was dropped pretty quickly. 

Edited by Martin T
Predictive text error
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Thanks for all the nice comments. I quite like building the more obscure aircraft that have had British markings as a change from Spitfires etc. Next up will be a Morane 406 and something a bit more mainstream

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  • 2 years later...

That's a nice job. Thanks for the heads up to this from the New Stuff thread. I'm looking forward to seeing mine, it doesn't sound too scary to build, the tips you give above will be a big help in that respect. 

Steve.

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Mr. T,

 

Very nice build of what I always thought was a handsome little fighter- a lot like the Curtiss CW-21. Looks to me like you nailed the prop- see the attached link to a photo of the subject of your model, as well as several others. BTW, is the AZ kit  the Sword kit reboxed?

Mike

 

https://www.worldwarphotos.info/gallery/usa/aircrafts-2-3/p-66/p-66-raf/

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22 minutes ago, 72modeler said:

BTW, is the AZ kit  the Sword kit reboxed?

I believe so Mike, according to Scalemates anyway. The AZ boxing's had injected canopy rather than vac formed ones. I'm not afraid of no vacform canopy. :D

Steve.

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4 hours ago, 72modeler said:

Mr. T,

 

Very nice build of what I always thought was a handsome little fighter- a lot like the Curtiss CW-21. Looks to me like you nailed the prop- see the attached link to a photo of the subject of your model, as well as several others. BTW, is the AZ kit  the Sword kit reboxed?

Mike

 

https://www.worldwarphotos.info/gallery/usa/aircrafts-2-3/p-66/p-66-raf/

Thanks, I had the kit for a while and kept meaning to do it until I a bit more time. I recall the canopy was fairly straightforward for a vacform and that the engine did not much in the way of location/support in the fuselage. The photo is one I used for reference, there seemed to be a few obviously taken at the same time for publicity/propaganda purposes. 

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On 04/10/2017 at 18:24, Mr T said:

The paint work caused some difficulties in terms of interior colours. I found one colour phot of the prototype being assembled that seemed to show a dark green colour being used and went with that.

This was probably the right decision. The contemporary cockpit colour for US fighters was Bronze Green (later Dull Dark Green, which was a matte version of Bronze Green).

Nice little model from the vast range of US prototypes that they exported (or tried to export) to recover the development costs. Well done!

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5 hours ago, 72modeler said:

 BTW, is the AZ kit  the Sword kit reboxed?

Yes, but with an important difference: the AZ kit comes with two canopies, one with the extended canopy glazing fitted to at least some aircraft (including the one (BW666?) mocked up as an RAF aircraft).

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10 hours ago, Seahawk said:

Yes, but with an important difference: the AZ kit comes with two canopies, one with the extended canopy glazing fitted to at least some aircraft (including the one (BW666?) mocked up as an RAF aircraft).

I think you're right Nick, it looks like the RAF & proposed Swedish version, by the look of the AZ box art anyway, had an extra clear bay at the back of the canopy, possibly not in the vac canopy so I might be limited to a USAAF marked one as photographed in Karachi prior to delivery to the KMT Chinese. I won't find that too much of a hardship.

Steve.

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9 hours ago, stevehnz said:

I'm wondering if the smaller clear canopy piece is the canopy extension for the British & Swedish versions?

Steve.

 

Yes. You have to remove a portion of the fuselage first.

 

 

 

Chris

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