Jon Kunac-Tabinor

Thank you! The 1A was in SAM Vol.45 No.2 April 2023 with the BAC research X-plane glider on the cover cheers Jonners

Hi Mark- there are now, here you go. The 1A was in SAM last year ( drop me a PM if you want further info), but Sharky was just for me, and both had the assistance of Mr Chris Thomas in large measures, and I still owe him a special Tiffie too - Cheers Jonners

Hi yes I did! Albeit about 11 yrs later! I also used the stuff I did in that build (Sharkie) when I did a Mk 1A backdate- so the same scratch-built wheel wells and the engine top too. I think I used the newer Tempest kits top for the latter as I had a spare from a resin Mk II conversion lying around. cheers Jonners

Oh very much definitely- and I'd say it's all the better by far for your input too. Sorry, I didn't mean to infer you were somehow an agent of chaos in the 'gun port saga' – more just a reporter of what you were sent! My apologies if it read as otherwise. Just put the instrument panel decal on and those lovely yellow dials look so good! CheersJonners

Well as they appear to have sold out of the kit on their website, I'm guessing that the comments here are probably not too worrying for them! 😁 LOL To be fair they could do with looking at the instructions. For example, the internal gun port inserts don't need fitting for this version (and they obstruct the outer panels anyway) plus some part references are swapped too. But they are not the first kit maker to release the 'less obvious' version first to ensure sales, and they won't be the last either. FWIW, I suspect the bemoaning of lack of the later gun muzzles in actual 'for sale' kits wasn't helped on here by the inestimable @Sabrejet and his lovely test build, which must have been supplied with those parts still on the sprue, because he says they are in the box. It's a fab kit but a little finicky in fit in some areas, and those outer gun panels need careful filling to remove the joint lines too; but they do fit very well. cheers Jonners

Thanks everyone- we seem to have a Rumsfeld conclusion then! LOL My initial though was, like Graham Boak, that the black was used on 'silver' machines, but there seem to be plenty of silver ones with red too: although perhaps they were reapplied when red was discovered to be more 'visible'? What I do know is finding the appropriate versions in Afrikaans is impossible in red or black! Very nie lekker! cheers Jonners

yes- sorry - typo - edited and corrected now. Jonners

HI all- so my title really asks the question. There doesn't seem to be a time related answer (eg black was earlier and replaced with red, or vice versa). The only thing I can see is that camouflaged RAF Vampires seem to use red. Does anyone know why both red and black markings were in use? Cheers Jonners

Just another note to say that you can fit the Airfix drop tanks to the wings, but you need to amend the contour of the tank pylon mating surface to match the wing's and build up the front of the pylon to extend further up (assuming you don't thin the wing or thin it enough that is). Also the panel lines on the lower wing where on inside edges of the airbrakes are missing - you need to scribe these in or your tank pylons will seemingly obstruct the airbrakes and you'll be scratching you head as to why. And the cannon shell and link ejections ports are missing under the fuselage ( I also have a nagging doubt that the bottom line of the mid-fuselage is not flat enough) Cheers Jonners

Hi all - here's the cutaway - it's item 42. And I think the ammo box is just visible in this pic too: HTH Jonners

I did a very quick check of the fuselage widths between the Airfix single seater and the Pilot Replicas two seater and they are slightly different- the Pilot Replicas is a little wider. I dot think it's enough to look to wide per se when standing its own, but I'd say it would cause more problems than it solved if you grafter the two-seat nose onto the Airfix body. Ditto with the wings- the Pilot Replicas wing thickness actually seems to translate into the inner-wing intake section being a bit too deep at its outer end. So grafting the Airfix outer wings would leave a step that would be tricky to eliminate (I'd think- from a casual eyeball of the parts). Whether you could transplant the entire Airfix wing and intake section onto two seat fuselage is an interesting question given the differences in fuselage design and parts breakdown. I'm not saying it's un-doable (and I'm not one to turn down a challenge) but the differences in both areas just seem to make it impractical. Cheers Jonners

Both, but with more sanding towards the wing tip. Sanding the trailing edge also has the advantage of reducing the chord slightly which helps sort out the extra width that Bjorn noted. Cheers Jonners

Hi - selective sanding. I sanded the wings outboard of the booms and intakes. It still means the outer edge of the intake insert needs reshaping a little, but the boom-stub depth stays the same as does the wing to fuselage depth - so there's no step with the fuselage join or the boom join. It's not a 'perfect' solution but it avoids destroying surface detail. I actually think that the wing depth is too thick all the way across its chord where it meets the intake section. But that's virtually impossible to fix unless you create an entirely new wing. Cheers Jonners

Great work Bjorn! I bought this kit and I'm now reviewing it for a mag. I thinned the wing halves from the inside and that seems to have worked too. The bluntness on the leading edges seems to be in the middle of the leading edge, so sanding them thinner helps with this too- or at least it seems too!! I also needed to reduce the depth of the wheel well walls too of course. In the pic, the left hand wing is unchanged and right hand thinned. Looking forward to seeing your finished model. Mine is currently destined to be a SAAF T.55. cheers Jonners

Thanks for this- the PDF v1.1 is very informative, especially as I have to review the new kit and was wondering about flat floors as I was planning on doing it as a 27 or 28 machines! cheers Jonners