sroubos

I suppose it's a rerelease of the old Revell kit, with an extra weapons sprue.

Matchbox' NF11/12/14 Meteor is just on those kits you gotta love for offering so much in such a small package. No less than three marks in one cheap box! Lots of spare parts, especially if you decide to use Aeroclub's conversion set. This kit has quite a bit of history behind it. I first started building when I was 7 or 8 or so and it was of course my dad who brought me into the hobby. We set out together to build all aircraft types ever flown in Dutch military or civil registrations, as well as all Dutch-designed types. The Meteor was of course on that list and my dad bought it as it looked like the two-seater T.7. The kit never reached the top of the build queue however and languished in the stash. Fast forward thirty years or so. My dad passed away two years back and I ran across the kit when tidying up the house, many kits had gone into storage. By then I'd also picked up a set of Dutch Decal's Facts & Fiction sheet, which had a very attractive scheme for an NF.14 which the Dutch Air Force was about to buy before the Americans stepped in to supply the F-86K. However, when I opened the kit there was a surprise: It included the Aeroclub conversion to build it as a T.7, fully marked up by my dad to show which parts where applicable. So that clinched it, build it as a T.7 as originally intended! So there we go. Contents of the box, minus some of the parts I'm not going to use. There are quite a few, various radar nose cones, short intakes, Mk.8 tail surfaces in two versions, a canopy. All off to the spares box. Aeroclub conversion set. Consists of a short nose, tail and vac canopy. Not sure if I'm going to use that last item. The injected parts are a bit crude but they seem workable enough. Nice of Aeroclub to include scale drawings as well. Construction begins, as usual, with the cockpit. Look at all those bits! Not bad for an old kit like this and a lot better than on most Matchbox kits I have built. This shot does include some optional parts though. All put together. I'm not going to bother painting them just yet as I foresee lots of filling, sanding, grinding and polishing in the near future. Not a lot will be seen anyway because of the heavy framing I think. A more capable modeller has a really good basis for a nicely detailed cockpit here. No painting + Matchbox = quick progress. All subassemblies go together relatively well but I can see lots of filling and sanding will be required and we haven't even started putting the conversion parts on. Oops. Moving to quickly, forgot to take off the nose section... doing it after the fuselage halves go together resulted in a bit of a step after sawing it off. Aeroclub very helpfully provide a guidance rail (not sure what to call it) on their nose section but because the part is so thick it just interferes with the fit so off it goes. Time to glue on the nose section - but wait! Aren't Meteors tailsitters? I'm pretty sure they are. There isn't a lot of space in the shortened nose section but I managed to squeeze in two fishing leads and fixed them with white-tac. Nose and tail on. I used some scrap lying around on my messy desk from a previous build to fill some of the bigger gaps and the gun troughs which are not present on the T.7. Tail is on as well as you can see but that was a bit too hasty as it turned out. The guidance thingy on the kit part doesn't fit well into the opening on the conversion tail so it effectively becomes a butt joint... ...which means it will probably not last through the build without breaking off multiple times. So a little bit of extra effort is required to strengthen the joint. On to the wings. Hmmmm... long or short intakes? It appears the Dutch T.7s flew with both Derwent 7, 8 and 9s, the latter of which apparently used the longer intakes... I spent a bit of time trying to ascertain which to use. I've settled for the long ones for now but I might change my mind after looking at a few more photos. It also means I will have to bite the bullet on which specific kit I will build. I have two decal sets from Dutch Decal with a number of options. Bit of work to do here. In any case I feel neither of the two intakes are 'rounded' enough at the front but a bit more sanding will solve that I think. First application of filler on the fuselage. Time to get grubby. That's it for now!

GWH do some as well

Lovely build, the silver paint scheme really shows off the clean lines of this little fighter.

You assume the diameter of the forward fuselage and tail halves match. Somehow I doubt that.

I like the look of this plane but the fuselage breakdown screams 'filler!'.

The Dutch flew it in blue and yellow too. Not sure if that is included in the first boxing.

Same here. I doubt you will get a 100% fit with decals on the whole airframe, so you'll have to do some touch-up and then good luck finding a paint to match the decals. I also worry about what it will do with the cripness of the panel lines if you cover the whole kit with decals.

That's correct, it's Kobayashi's plane. https://www.aviationgraphic.com/aviation-lithographs/3667-ki-61-tony-sky-18.html

Drool - that looks absolutely stunning Eduard did the panel overlap very convincingly on their 1/72 Hellcat so I hope it will be present on this kit too.

Hasegawa's 1/72 kit of the Hien or Tony is an oldie and I've had it on my shelves for at least 25 years. It's one of their earlier, simpler kits but it does have the recessed panel lines we are all used to now. My boxing is from the 90s and I had a suspicion that the paint schemes provided were pretty inaccurate. Via Ronnie Olsthoorn I was provided with some more accurate side views and by painting the markings myself with a bit of help from the decal sheet from one of the newer boxings in my stash I believe I've managed to turn it into something a bit more accurate. Weathering was done by painting the kit in a variety of metal shades, sealing this with future, applying IJA green, then sanding back the green. I'm satisfied with how this turned out. Spraying the hinomaru's was a pain as both my white paint and my red were end of life and with Covid-19 in the way I had no immediate way to resolve this, so they came out a bit ragged. Then again, that fits with the rest of the color scheme. Eduard's canopy masks were used, they were the old vinyl ones and they are hopeless, not sticking very well to curved surfaces. Hasegawa's kit is of course a bit light on detail in most areas - I have the Tamiya kit in my stash and it is amazing what 30 years have done to our hobby - so I handcrafted a few things. Landing light was added, with the help of a sharp knife and a lens by Little Cars, Albion Alloys provided the pitot tube, EZ-Wire the antennae wires and Tamiya's tape department the seat belts. Finally, I used Quickboost’s exhausts. They are an improvement over the kit parts even though they are slightly undersized, a common issue with QB parts I find. Hope you enjoy it.

The last picture looks more like what it should be. In any case the color of the lid is often not a reliable match with the actual paint - let alone a photograph of it. So - only way to find out is to actually use the paint

That looks even better than the Hurricane, this company is going from strength to strength. Ten years back you would never have guessed from these sprue shots this is 1/72, You'd think it's 1/48 or even 1/32.

That's good value for 16 euros but a shame they couldn't squeeze in a cockpit mask I got spoiled by the Claude I think.

Yes I just realized that after reading up on it, see my corrected post above