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Revell/Matchbox Fury I


Max Headroom

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I must be getting old. I remember this being released first time around! It still has 'PK-1' as it's Matchbox catalogue number on one of the sprues but the 'Made in.....' imprint has been obscured. Instead the box proudly announces that it is made in the EU.

Here is the lid. Notice the price - utter bargain!

086417d9.jpg

I seem to remember thinking back when I had long hair that it was a nice kit to build. Simple, it had no hint of the Matchbox trench horror that was to follow. My failing memory tells me that one of the two colours on the original release was blue?

86801285.jpg.

It comprises only two spues

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There is no windshield included.

However it does have a rigging diagram!

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43 Sqn stickies

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Pity there is only one option. Now then, I understand that these are wrong? How? Doesn't matter much to me as I intend to do it as a Munich Crisis era camouflaged version anyway.

As you can see from below I have two stalled projects for this year, so I need something quick, simple and out of my usual zone of interest to ensure that I have at least one finished project for this year's BM photo album! It's going to be a 'slap togther' jobbie to get my mojo jump started. :huh:

I have a ffew questions. Is the interior interior green? What colour is the seat and was it equipped with a Sutton Harness?

tvm in anticipation

Trevor

Edited by Max Headroom
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I felt the same when I saw this re-released as it was my very fist bi-plane lit when I was about 7 (1977). I also went for what I was informed was the blue upper decking and prop spinner. The prop spinner being seperate to the main wooden balanced prop. The blue I just matched to the RAF roundel blue on the decals. Might be worth checking your box as mine came with the windshield which was tiny & came attached to a small piece of clear sprue. I also painted the interior in a rendition of "interior green" and I just painted on silver lines to show the fuselage framing inside. Happy building, these always look great when finished!

Martin

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43 Sqn stickies

21d8bb33.jpg

Pity there is only one option. Now then, I understand that these are wrong? How? Doesn't matter much to me as I intend to do it as a Munich Crisis era camouflaged version anyway.

Trevor

I don't think the decals are wrong , they're just not what they claim to be . 43 Sqn used black & white checks - the red bars given in the kit are for 1 Sqn .

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I'm not sure about the Fury, but generally a 1930's aircraft would have black frames/tubing and linen interiors, with some reddish patches where the primer was soaking through. I don't know about the seat.

How much can you see inside a Fury, anyway?

Edited by Graham Boak
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I have a ffew questions. Is the interior interior green? What colour is the seat and was it equipped with a Sutton Harness?

tvm in anticipation

Trevor

Hi Trevor

posted down the page,

http://aircraftwalkarounds.be/Images/Hawke...%201/index.html

the Nimrod is a navalised Fury basically, and the colours and nearly all the cockpit fittings the same, the Nimrod has couple of added bits to be precise. There are pics of a restored Fury about as well, showing essentially the same colours.

PM me our email if you want more info.

HTH

T

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Hi Max,

To add to the interior colours questions, I was corresponding with Guy Black from HAC who were restoring K5674 and he very kindly shared his knowledge with me regarding Fury colours.

The interior of the cowls was obviously natural aluminium. The tubular structure was either black or interior grey green (dependant on year of construction), instrument panel was anodised grey aluminium and the seat painted in aluminium paint. The rear plywood bulkhead behind the pilot's seat was usually painted grey green.

The Fury might just pip the Spitfire for top place on my favourite aircraft list. I have several of these Revell/Matchbox kits in the stash and a 1/48 Lindberg nearing completion.

Cheers and hope that might be of some help,

Tim

EDIT:

PS - Forgot to say that yes the seat was equipped with a Sutton harness.

Edited by Smithy
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Hi Trevor,

There should be a small clear sprue with the windshield on it in your kit

Also something additionally...

In terms of the talk about K2065 having a blue tailplane and rear upper fuselage this is one of those rare occasions where the kit manufacturer is more than likely correct.

Research by those such as Crawford has shown that K2065 was the C Flight commander's mount in 1 Sqn and not the B Flight commander's. C Flight colour was yellow (B was blue, A was red). Secondly, high res versions of the famous photo of K2065 warming up at Tangmere show the tonal difference in colour between the blue of the roundel and rudder and the upper fuselage and fin. Even though there is oversaturation in the photo from it being a very bright day, it is quite noticeable between the fin and rudder (which is at neutral position shown by shadow). I have heard mention how this colour doesn't look like the colour of yellow on Fury trainers and so it must be blue, but this is misleading due to trainer yellow being a matt colour brought into RAF stores in the late 30s. The yellow used on early 30s aircraft was a brighter gloss shade.

I personally think the reason for this idea that K2065 had the blue markings is because of an error from a SAM article which was a main source of Fury info for modellers and decal makers. This article correctly lists K2065 as a C Flight machine but then erroneously lists C flight colours as blue. This has been perpetuated since.

Sorry for the long-winded blurb but I thought this might be worth pointing out for interest's sake.

Cheers,

Tim

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To add to the interior colours questions, I was corresponding with Guy Black from HAC who were restoring K5674 and he very kindly shared his knowledge with me regarding Fury colours.

The interior of the cowls was obviously natural aluminium. The tubular structure was either black or interior grey green (dependant on year of construction), instrument panel was anodised grey aluminium and the seat painted in aluminium paint. The rear plywood bulkhead behind the pilot's seat was usually painted grey green.

I would treat the interior frame as being grey-green with caution. Either japanned black or aluminium dope I'd suggest.

I also contacted Retrotec, with this reply. It's slightly more detailed so i'll repost.

As an aside the Hurricane prototype had black enameled framework. As i was working a model of the Hurricane prototype, I got in touch with Retrotec who restore Hawker biplanes. here's what they said about the Fury, note the comment about the Hurricane.

"The interior of the Fury is as follows:

The steel tube and steel fittings are stove enamelled black.

The stainless steel fittings are bare metal.

The Duralumin parts are anodised grey.

The aluminium cowlings are polished.

The wooden parts are painted cockpit green.

The fabric appears red on the inside; this is the colour of the first coats of dope.

On many of the two seater biplanes, and possibly the early Hurricanes, the fuselage was painted as a complete assembly, this is either a greeny-grey or silver.

The props are fabric covered and painted grey. The back of the blades is often matt black to avoid reflection. Tips are often yellow."

interior woodwork, yes. Frames, early on black jappaned, later I'd suggest aluminium dope, rather than grey-green, as this was the case with Hurricanes until at least 1940.

The Finns have an unrestored and untouched since 1943 Gloster built MkI. IIRC some Typhoons had silver frames as well.

this is posted by Kari Lumppio in this thread on Hurricane inner colours, also well shows the red dope on fabric, which is why i'm quoting it.

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.p...=52968&st=0

IMG_6631.JPG

HTH

T

Edited by Troy Smith
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All this lovely detail makes me feel guilty about doing a quick build!

I wonder would Airfix consider a re release of their 1/48 kit?

And who has the Impact (?) moulds as I heard that although older is better than the Airfix offering.

Trevor

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Smithy I googled K2065 and found this pic

http://www.google.co.uk/m/search?site=imag...+Fury+K2065#i=0

Is this the one you mean?

The blue of the roundel and tailstripe look an awful lot lighter than the kit transfers?

Trevor

Edited by Max Headroom
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I would treat the interior frame as being grey-green with caution. Either japanned black or aluminium dope I'd suggest.

Hi Troy,

Great stuff there on the interior details.

In terms of the grey green for the tubular frame, this came from Guy Black, the Technical Director at HAC. They found restoring K5674 that the colour was used on Furies but that it was dependent on the year of manufacture. It might be plausible to assume that the grey green was used on later contract Furies whilst the black was an earlier feature. K5674 was in the last Fury I contract batch (409396/15) so very possibly aircraft of this batch and perhaps earlier were having grey green used on them.

Hi Trevor,

Yes that's the Fury I was referring to and is the one that the kit decals are for. In terms of the colours being lighter, maybe the decals could be a shade or two lighter but they look very light in that photo because of the intense sunlight which is affecting their appearance.

Cheers,

Tim

Edited by Smithy
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All this lovely detail makes me feel guilty about doing a quick build!

I wonder would Airfix consider a re release of their 1/48 kit?

And who has the Impact (?) moulds as I heard that although older is better than the Airfix offering.

Trevor

Trevor

some info onthe two Furies in 1/48th.

The one you refer to was was originally issued by Inpact, then later by Pyro, Lifelike and most recently I think by Lindberg. These are all the same kit. This goes for all the Inpact kits.

The Airfix Fury was issued in 1979 or 80, and was a retooled Merit kit, though IIRC from the Scale Models artcle back then, was never issued by Merit.

I posted this a while back, but may be of interest.

I'm not totally up on the Inpact story, try searching on it.

But they been issued under Inpact/Pyro/Lifelike labels, and I think are currently available as Lindberg.

They did two sets, one of interwar fighters, Fury, Bulldog, Flycatcher, Gladiator.

and the other of very early types, Bristol Boxkite,Avro Triplane,Avro Biplane, Bleriot, Martin Handasyde, Deperdussin

If you are interested in biplanes, I suggest you hvae a read through this, http://www.wwi-n-plastic.com/Book/harry/contents.htm

It's an online version of a book, published in the late 70's I think, but Harry Woodman's speciality was biplanes, and there are lots of useful tips...heck, I got a 1976 Scale Models a while back with an article by him on making photo etch back then!!!

note http://www.wwi-n-plastic.com/Book/harry/ch...ller-inpact.htm

INPACT(British)

LIFELIKE (United States)

A late starter in the plastic model, Inpact introduced itself with an outstanding range of six models of pre-1914 aircraft as listed below. These kits are moulded with a very high degree of accuracy. Very little modification is required to produce an excellent model, but the substitution of fine sprue for the slightly heavy strutwork is recommended. The wheels of the six antique models should all be bare spoked, and Inpact compromised by supplying transparent wheels which require the spokes to be painted in. Methods of making spoked wheels are described elsewhere on this site. The second series of British fighter aeroplanes of the inter-war period are moulded with a degree of fidelity which must be regarded as the finest in the entire field. It is the attention to detail, and the completely accurate reproduction of this detail which raises these kits above all others in quality and value for money as they are very modestly priced. Inpact ceased production in 1968 but the US Pyro firm have acquired the moulds and have reissued all the models under the Lifelike label.

http://s362974870.onlinehome.us/forums/air...showtopic=95721

note this from Edgar...

Posted 24 August 2006 - 08:13 AM

I met the man, who made the masters, years ago, at a Model Engineering Exhibition. He told me that, in his loft, he had the masters for every British between-wars biplane, but Inpact had gone bust before they could be used. I try not to think of it, but, occasionally, I wonder what happened to them.

Edgar

HTH

T

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Hi Mackem,

I'm not at home at the mo so away from the books but IIRC Crawford for one makes no mention of the tailplanes being yellow on K2065. In fact I'm not sure 1 Sqn used coloured tailplane surfaces on flight commanders' mounts unlike 43 Sqn which did.

I'll have a look in my references when I can although maybe someone here can confirm this either way before then.

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  • 1 month later...

I've started building it! It's literally a slap together jobbie with a black void for a cockpit

To be honest it's a bit rough in parts, as it has flash and gaps. However it was the first Matchbox release (1972?)

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despite what the photos suggest, it is moulded in a grey plastic.

I intend to finish it as a Munich Crisis machine,.

More soon!

Trevor

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Thanks for posting this thread, Trevor. As soon as I got off it earlier today I got out my A-Model ones, all 6 of them, to see how they were made up. I also got out my Mushroom Pubs book, & my Wings of Silver one. The Mushroom one has the yellow markings on the 1 squadron plane & the WoS one has them in blue. I will go with the yellow. The Musroom book also has a 3 view of K8267 in camoflaged uppers, the metal area in aluminum, back of that is yellow as are the bottom of the wings & tailplane. The outer ends of the upper wing is also yellow to just a little inboard of the roundels.A number 7 in white on a large black rectangle is just forward of the fuselage roundel. This is one I have in mind to do in both !/72nd & 1/48th scales. Carl T :thumbsup::speak_cool:

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Thanks for posting this thread, Trevor. As soon as I got off it earlier today I got out my A-Model ones, all 6 of them, to see how they were made up. I also got out my Mushroom Pubs book, & my Wings of Silver one. The Mushroom one has the yellow markings on the 1 squadron plane & the WoS one has them in blue. I will go with the yellow. The Musroom book also has a 3 view of K8267 in camoflaged uppers, the metal area in aluminum, back of that is yellow as are the bottom of the wings & tailplane. The outer ends of the upper wing is also yellow to just a little inboard of the roundels.A number 7 in white on a large black rectangle is just forward of the fuselage roundel. This is one I have in mind to do in both !/72nd & 1/48th scales. Carl T :thumbsup::speak_cool:

How did I know this thread would attract you, Carl? ;)

I don't remember many Matchbox kits having the "rivet detail" on them, and boy that fit is pretty rough…

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