skippiebg

Many thanks to Jure Miljević and Bzn20 for some fascinating input! AA seems to have had a fairly ecclectic attitude to naming aircraft (and indeed painting them in a uniform manner). Lovely colour, though, and once I have decided on one of the many schemes the few AA Comets wore, I shall design and print my own decals and go at it Incidentally, it took me ages to work out what the writing on the AA Comet fins said. It is "DE HAVILLAND/COMET-4 (or COMET-4C, and yes, with a hyphen)/TURBINAS/ROLLS-ROYCE AVON". This, plus a 'credits panel' in English on some early a/c... Typographically, things were also quite haphazard. Wonderful

Wow, never knew of that clip. Thanks!. The Transport Wings Comet, hmm-m... I had one 20-odd years ago and sold it unbuilt. As I remember, plenty more problems than the Mach 2. Never seen the Welsh Comet 4s.

Jure, kolega, najlepša hvala (huge thanks) for this excellent information which I did not have! --- I have both the Mach 2 Caravelle and Comet 4C kits. The Comet appears to be based on the Airfix Nimrod. This means the engine intakes and the entire forward halves of the engine tracts are very much deeper than they should be (the Comet had thin and spindly Avon turbojets. The Nimrod had much fatter Spey turbofans.) Other than the wrong engine housings, the kit has inherited all Airfix's Nimrod faults, which are niggling, but not too offputting, to me at least. Among them is an indifferent nose shape, an indifferent fin shape, indifferently shaped wing pinion tanks, and the general feeling of a so-so kit. The really crooked cabin windows are a purely Mach 2 addition. In summary, using the Mach 2 kit to make a faithful model of the Comet 4C wouild call for a brave and complex refashioning of the lower centre section of the wing. This might, or might not, be your thing... Oh, and the Dan-Air decals my version has are wrong both typographically and geometrically, as well as being extremely crude. To answer your question, I would say that, despite its much greater age, the Mach 2 Caravelle is an altogether nicer and more straightforward kit than the Comet. --- Among Comet kits, the King-and-Sire has to be the FROG 1/96 kit of the Comet 4, much more widely available under the Soviet Novo late 1970s brand. It is chunky and sound in all general and quite a few particular aspects, and offers a superb basis for superdetailing or improvements. Best of all, it remains fairly widely available at very reasonable prices. The decals, either FROG or Novo, are unusable, but that is a small inconvenience easily forgotten while the rest of the kit fills you with a deep and therapeutic sense of satisfaction and gratitude

Aerolineas Argentinas Comet 4s saw a considerable number of variations in their colour schemes. Photos are few, far between, and of crap quality. Some a/c seem only to have a single photo online -- period! Sources are scanty and iffy... All in all, I need help! My research shows this: Comet 4 LV-PLM/-AHN "Las Tres Marias" Jan 1959 to retirement 1971 1st colours: style 1 (thick/thin, tall) titles, plain pinion tanks; 2nd colours: as above plus style 3 (ultimate) titles; 3rd colours (1964 onwards?): as above plus logo on fin, fuselage registration in cheatline Comet 4 LV-PLO/-AHO "Cruz del Sur, Lucero de la Tarde," then just "Lucero de la Tarde" (thank you!) Feb 1959 to crash Feb 1960 1st colours: style 2 (bold, tight-set) titles; 2nd colours: as above plus style 3 titles, titles on pinion tanks; 3rd colours: as above plus painted pinion tanks Comet 4 LV-PLP/-AHP "El Lucero del Alba" Mar 1959 to crash Aug 1959 only colours: style 3 titles, titles on pinion tanks, "de Havilland Comet 4/Rolls-Royce Avon Turbojets" credit panel over cheatline aft of port door Comet 4 LV-POV/-AHR "Alborado," also "Arco Iris" (thank you!) Feb 1960 to crash Dec 1961 only colours: style 3 titles, painted pinion tanks Comet 4 LV-POZ/-AHS "Las Tres Marias," then "Alborada" (thank you!) Feb 1960 to retirement 1971 only colours: style 3 titles, painted pinion tanks Comet 4 LV-PPA/-AHU "Centaurus" Jul 1960 to retirement 1971 1st colour: style 3 titles, painted pinion tanks; 2nd colour (1964 onwards?): as above plus logo on fin, fuselage registration in cheatline Comet 4C LV-PTS/-AIB "President Kennedy" April 1962 to retirement 1971 1st colours: style 3 titles, painted pinion tanks; 2nd colours: as above plus fuselage registration in cheatline 3rd colours (1964 onwards?: as above plus logo on fin My questions are: 1. Was LV-AHO really called "Lucero de la Tarde" rather than "El Lucero de la Tarde" (also, which words really had initial capitals)? No "El" and only nouns initial-capitalised, thank you! 2. Did other Comets also have credit panels ("De Havilland Comet 4/Rolls-Royce Avon Turbojets") over the cheatline, aft of the portside door? Al least AHN and AHO did, thank you! 3. Was LV-AHR really called "Alborado", rather than "Alborada"? Alborada it was, thank you! 4. Was the oddball LV-AIB (a Comet 4C, not a 4, and a "white-tail" bought much later than other fleet members) really called "President Kennedy", rather than "El Presidente Kennedy"? Was this ship named thus after JFK's November 1963 assassination? if so, what (if anything) was it called over its 18 months of service before Nov 1963? Appears to have been "President Kennedy" in English, not Spanish, from the start, reflecting a major visit by JFK to Argentina in 1961, thank you! 5. Did LV-AHS also get the post-1964 changes of fuselage registration in the cheatline and logo on the fin? It did, thank you! 6. Were LV-AHN and LV-AHS really both called "Las Tres Marias", or is this a mistake? They both were, thank you! Sorry this is so arcane and age-old, and many thanks in advance!

Brilliant work, and lots of it, too! The nose is amazingly true to life!

I'm getting some popcorn... (John @Viking, I have some Comet 4C drawings basically cadged off the old Aeromodeller effort and done up by myself. Drop me a PM with your email addy and they are yours.) Peter

I feel that's the reason Amodel keeps popping up amid all the criticism. Its intake and centre section area, while not perfect, are really rather decent! The Comet is a huge sculpture all over, really...

On window decals, it's worth noting the Caravelle had the Comet 1/2/3 windcreen. Comet 4 was as close as damn it identical to that (front four panes were flat, but that was all). Comets 4B and 4C, though, had slight height increases to the forward four panes, as shown in the Guy Montagu-Pollock illustrations. Though minor, this really shows in real life. All this, time, the Caravelle stayed with the Comet 1/2/3 arrangement until the VI-N inclusive, going for an altogether different layout from the VI-R.

A spiffy addition to the topic, that, what!? I like whoever-made-it's sense of humour. I take it the mysterious "upper-surface air-scoops" are none other than the fixed slots on the inboard side of the pinion tanks. (I'll take especial care to cavort about the room while I bask in my accomplishment!)

Thank you so much for this, John and Tommo! I'd say, personally, the AA nose is the same as their Caravelle. (Which are lovely and of which I have two in the stash...) Here is a brilliant set of Comet 4 and 4B/4C noses, by friend Guy Montaguy-Pollock. The Comet nose is a tad shorter than the Caravelle's and its windscreen sits a tad higher in the fuselage. A personal view, this, entirely unsupported by measurements...

May I add to that a request for the underside of the fuselage at the centre section? Ta in advance!

Wow! What a brilliant visual comparison! Thank you so much, John! On noses, I feel that AA is indeed too tapered -- looks like their Caravelle if you ask me. (The Caravelle did indeed have the same nose, but a longer radome, and the nose merged into a slightly wider fuselage in which it sat slightly low, giving an appearance entirely distinct from the Comet.) The Airfix is indeed too blunt, as is also the Amodel, I'd venture...

S'ppose by the time you add this and that to an Airfix, it all comes down to the same thing, money wise. Thing is, I like fiddling with plastic, personally. Be nice if I finished the odd build, too...

Thank you, Dave, for a wonderful roundup! This thread's now taken us full circle from Airfix and Amodel, via Welsh, onto Authentic Airliners. Yet again we learn that if we want perfection on the Comet front, we have to dish out sixty-odd knicker (plus P&P). Half that price gets us half the perfection. A third or less gets us a hodge-podge, as already stated above by John (Viking). Unless we're in for a long improvement project, that is... The Airfix Comet is cheap and easily available. It is essentially geometrically sound. It is also sufficiently sturdy/"fleshy" (in that nice Airfix way of old) to allow very heavy tampering. Its major drawback is a featureless, bloated centre section with inboard engines and jetpipes that are half as big again as the outboard ones. Lesser issues include an undersized and misshapen fin and undersize engine inlets. And it only represents the 4B, needing pinion tanks and wing extensions to represent the more numerous 4 and 4C. So my vote goes to Airfix, personally.

Nice! Quite possibly... The whole kit is skewed in different directions. There again, most kits are skew-whiff, each in a different way or ways, so perhaps the best policy is, least said, soonest mended! In my old age, anything that passes the "looks like" test will do! :) Absolutely! I'd add the engines' undersides to the list -- each pair kind of merges into a single lump about 2/3rds of the way back at the bottom, but in this area Welsh appear to have just copied Airfix, with its four discernible jet pipes. I've not seen the Welsh kit and am just judging by photos here and elsewhere. Still, thanks for letting us have a look-see! Nice!

Welsh used to do a nice Comet 3 in BEA's original 1946 paint, as flown at Farnborough!

Question was asked up-thread. Same length as the Comet 4 (i.e., not B or C). Meaning, the Amodel still needs a plug behind the wing.

Fig. 3 here shows the (probably) later exhaust silencer, similar to the Trident's. This view is common to both silencers -- each a "six-lobe" affair. This photo shows the (possibly) earlier silencer. Seen from the side, instead of largeish chevrons it has rather smaller nearly circular oval apertures. ----- The Trident's Speys had silencers similar to the "newer" ones on the Comet, as seen in this Britmodeler walkaround photo.

Haven't sen the Welsh one, Tommo. But the cans in the Amodel are correct for one of the two Comet silencer types (the one with the "chevrons").

There were two Comet 4 (4B, 4C) silencer designs= Judging by photos, they seem to have been interchangeable with each other. Never seen a Comet fitted with a mix of the two designs, mind! Each was very similar to the other -- indeed, from behind they are identical. The distinguishing feature is visible when looking from the side. The earlier (possibly) one has oval (nearly circular) apertures. The newer design has chevrons. Tridents had silencers very similar to the latter Comet design.

The 3 was the same length as the 4 and had the tankless wings of the 4B. 'Fraid the Amodel kit still needs 5mm-odd adding at the back...

John! Wow! Llllovely! (Just to add my little list of other mods: tail bumper; wing fences and strakes; "strakes" between engine exhausts; drill oil cooler intakes between engine intakes; raised pipes at wingtips; fuel jettison pipes at trailing edge. Oh, and the decal probably won't fit after the stretch, so one meant for the Airfix Comet will be needed.)

Actually, the BEA decal is typographically wrong and it shows particularly in the red square logos. I have an old Liveries Unlimited sheet somewhere that captures everything right. The original has those! I know it's odd, but there we are. I have photos of G-APMA at Duxford that I can post to prove it. The Amodel wins in the sculpting of the engines and the underside. The Airfix sadly fails there, as in most other finer areas. It's bang up to scale, however, as well as being chunky, winsome and tough in that old Airfix way, sure enough

Tommo, I've just opened up an Airfix Comet 4B and compared it to an Amodel one. Amodel is almost exactly 1cm too short (making it 1/149-ish scale in length), but exactly right in span. Personally, I'd simply stretch it using plastic card and Milliput, with lengths of sprue to keep it aligned. Needs 5mm fore and 5mm aft of the wing. Easy-peasy! I defer to your own views on that, naturally The 26 decal looks tasty, by the way,! but again the brightwork window surrounds look a tad over the top... Of course, they might be less pronounced in the flesh.

Exactly in that place the Amodel is utterly right and the Airfix is utterly wrong. Best just fill the gap with Milliput if you want to go ahead with cross-kitting. On the decals, the cheatline should be BEA black as the Olympic machines were in fact leased from BEA. I don't have my Comet to hand to confirm whether that is right or wrong. The Amodel decals are typographically wrong both as regards the Olympic title and the registration. Airfix wins on that front. The 26 decals sheet is right for the later Olympic scheme and I'd say you've done the right thing to get it.