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Good morning and welcome to the RFI of my Fairey Firefly 1/48 by Trumpeter I finished the build a while ago but the weather has been so awful I couldn’t take pics. We had a lovely sunny day yesterday so decided to catch up on some RFIs I had outstanding. The Trumpeter kit has some real hate but overall I think it’s a great kit. If you’re willing to put in a little time and effort (That's what it’s all about right❤️) you can get a nice result. For this build I build and 3D printed some cockpit walls, wheels, nose vents, intake covers and cannons. I think that was it? 🤔 Scratch built some new flaps the dog ate from plasticard and fixed the rest with Sanding, painting and care. The decals were mostly from the kit but the roundels were changed as the colours were a bit off. The WIP thread is here for those who are curious. Not loads of pics but at least they’re here. Hope you like em. That’s your lot. I hope you like the pics and if you followed the WIP. Thanks for tagging along. As always all comments and questions welcome. Happy Modelling Chums. Johnny. ☀️

Bless my soul it’s a Fairey Firefly in 1/48 by Trumpeter Hello and welcome to my next aeroplane build. This kit Was sat at Ian Allen in Birmingham city Center since it’s release in 2018. Collecting dust. She was just out of reach price wise but When the 75% off closing down sale occurred I snapped it up along with a few other choice kits. ( Double edged sword of joy and sadness. 😃😔 I was excited to have it and looked forward to making her. As she wriggled her way to the top of the stash I began to look for builds on line. Lots of “special hobby” Fireflys but no Trumpeter. Then I start reading the reviews. 🤦‍♂️ It seems there is a lot of hate for this kit. The more I read the more disappointed I got. The more disappointed I got the more I read and the more I looked at the kit. She looks like a firefly, smells like a firefly, heck it even has firefly written on the box. I was well on the side of the under Dog. Yes there seem to be some issues and I’m not looking to build this under the eye of Sauron or anyone for that matter. I’m just here to have a good time. 🤘The issues that are most relevant to me I think I can fix with some old school modelling work / 3D printing and a rather lovely big dollop of enthusiasm. I’ve opened the box now so there’s no going back. 🫣🫠😜 Join me if you will in another adventure, I’d be glad for the support. 😍 Pawing through the various bashings this poor kit has had I have picked out a few things I’ll definitely be fixing along the way. And probably more as the build unfolds. They are: A new tail rudder. Cloth instead of metal. New wheels. Deeper and more details New wheel wells. Squared and detailed. Detailed cockpit. Just a little more. Nose vent things. You know if you know. Cockpit mirror. Yeah that. 🪩🪞 That’ll do for starters. I’m confident I’ll get a lovely looking firefly at the end of this but one can never tell. I might just spoon it. 😱 Regardless if you’ve ever wanted to build this or ever wondered who on earth would then now’s your chance. Tag along and watch what happens after I open the box. Welcome friends. Johnny.

I actually finished the aircraft that forms the central basis of this back in February time but then put it to one side and didn't finalise the project. So whilst putting the figures together for the Carriers Ahoy Seahawk, I thought this would be a great opportunity to paint the aircrew figures to complete the Firefly. The basic kit went together as well as you might expect for a mixed media, limited run kit with no alignment tabs and a plethora of butt joins. The resin was actually lovely and the cockpits looked really good once they were complete - it was almost a shame to fit them into the fuselage. Unfortunately that's where the problems started because the resin wasn't a great fit to either cockpit space and meant that it was near impossible to get the Observer's canopy to fit properly. I'd shaved off as much as I dared but still they were a tadge too wide. I tried a new pre-shading technique on one lower wing - a fine line permanent marker. Complete disaster. It took about 17 coast of Vallejo Sky to cover it up and even then it's still way too prominent. Fortunately the model is glued to the base so its impossible to see unless you go looking specifically for it. I also didn't notice until I took the photos that the propeller blades are somewhat swept back. The final photo with the close up of the aircrew seems to show silvering on the decal; I think this is a symptom of the flash as to the naked eye it seems fine. The figures are from CMK, ostensibly RAF WW2 aircrew. I wasn't especially impressed - the mouldings on other resin figures I've had have been better and there was a lot of fine rubbing down to get rid of seams etc. The pilot (with his back to the photos) originally had a moustache so milliput made that into a beard. The kit represents an aircraft from 1792 NAS embarked in HMS OCEAN in 1946. The squadron was especially formed for night fighter duties which possibly explains why the Observer is looking wistfully up at his cockpit with a nervous disposition. If he is like me, I used to hate night flying. Punching off the deck into the dark knowing that at least 50% of your brain for the next 2 hours is completely pre-occupied with trying to find mother again in the middle of a dark and featureless ocean, or go for a swim, and then totally placing your trust in your pilot to land the thing on the deck in near zero visibility; I imagine it was worse in the 1940s! [

Hi, Another archive model - from a deep past. Fairey Firefly FR I in markings of 1770 Sq FAA based on HMS Indefatigable, Pacific fleet, spring 1945. I made it i 1993, so many years before much nicer SH kit appeared. As usually I was trying to do small improvment to the kit. Some are perhaps still visible. Now - before posting I had to change roundels and lettering - the original were bad quality did not stand time. The present are taken from Techmod sets (for FAA Wildat and a white lettering). Comments welcome and regards Jerzy-Wojtek