1:72 MPM de Havilland Sea Vixen FAW.2 (TT) XS587

[JOCKNEY]

Thanks for the this Bill I have really enjoyed seeing this develop into the finished aircraft, you perseverance has been rewarded. Also really glad to hear the other half recovered to enjoy Christmas it may have been the threat of you cooking that brought about the speedy recovery !

Cheers Pat

[ad70]

Very nice work indeed sir!

[Miggers]

Great finish Bill,you've seen my comment in RFI.

Looking at that shot of the real kite viz the kit,you can see where Neil(Lambess)when

he mentioned chocking out the rocket bulges and taking them down slightly at the rear.

The kit's nose wheel also looks slightly under sized too compared to the real thing.

A quick easy check is to use one of the 3 spoke mainwheels from an Airfix Spit XIX,

they should be the same size.

Buccaneer nosewheels are also the same size as the 'Vixen and those 3 spoke Spit

mainwheels.

Never the less Bill,it's been a great WIP(learned a bit for my up and coming Frogger

into a D.3 with Aeroclub bits project too)and a damn good read.

[Navy Bird]

On 1/5/2013 at 11:24, Miggers said:

Great finish Bill,you've seen my comment in RFI.

Looking at that shot of the real kite viz the kit,you can see where Neil(Lambess)when

he mentioned chocking out the rocket bulges and taking them down slightly at the rear.

The kit's nose wheel also looks slightly under sized too compared to the real thing.

A quick easy check is to use one of the 3 spoke mainwheels from an Airfix Spit XIX,

they should be the same size.

Buccaneer nosewheels are also the same size as the 'Vixen and those 3 spoke Spit

mainwheels.

Never the less Bill,it's been a great WIP(learned a bit for my up and coming Frogger

into a D.3 with Aeroclub bits project too)and a damn good read.

 

Yes, Neil was spot-on about the rocket pod bulges, I probably should have spent some time on them. I hadn't noticed the nose wheel before, thanks for pointing that out. Should be an easy fix.

 

Cheers,

Bill

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Bill - I have only just discovered this build (following links from other threads can take you down some real rabbit holes on BM), and you did a typically excellent job on an... interesting... kit. Dimensional issues have been well covered, but the biggest thing that sticks out to me, as someone who has been staring at the Airfix 1/48 Vixen in progress for over a year now, is the intakes. Those are far too fat and rounded (possibly as a knock-on from the too deep nose); a comparison of the real thing vs model shots in post 125 shows it well - real aircraft intakes are basically straight line top and bottom... kit gentle curve.

But hey, that's certainly not your fault, and fixing it would open up a while can of worms.

Great scheme, though. Somewhere in my future I think I have the half-black-half-white FAW1 used for Martel testing - which survives (though no longer in that scheme) in the FAAM reserve collection; the only scheme that comes close to this one. But not for a long time yet; my 890NAS FAW1 has Vixened me out for now.

[Navy Bird]

On 8/12/2016 at 07:30, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Bill - I have only just discovered this build (following links from other threads can take you down some real rabbit holes on BM), and you did a typically excellent job on an... interesting... kit. Dimensional issues have been well covered, but the biggest thing that sticks out to me, as someone who has been staring at the Airfix 1/48 Vixen in progress for over a year now, is the intakes. Those are far too fat and rounded (possibly as a knock-on from the too deep nose); a comparison of the real thing vs model shots in post 125 shows it well - real aircraft intakes are basically straight line top and bottom... kit gentle curve.

But hey, that's certainly not your fault, and fixing it would open up a while can of worms.

Great scheme, though. Somewhere in my future I think I have the half-black-half-white FAW1 used for Martel testing - which survives (though no longer in that scheme) in the FAAM reserve collection; the only scheme that comes close to this one. But not for a long time yet; my 890NAS FAW1 has Vixened me out for now.

 

Wow, talk about bringing a thread back from the dead. You're spot on about the intakes - I had noticed this during the build but decided not to try and fix it. As you say, it would have been a big undertaking, and with everything else I was trying to fix - yikes! It's really too bad that both MPM/Xtrakit and Cyberhobby botched their 1:72 Sea Vixen kits. We FAA enthusiasts really need a good kit in this scale. If only Airfix would scale their 1:48 beauty down - please! Or, perhaps even better, we could convince Martin from AMK to do it. Wouldn't that be something?

 

That Martel testing scheme sounds interesting. I shall have to go do some searching for photos.

 

Cheers,

Bill

[Learstang]

Yes, Bill - we are long-overdue for a good kit of any version of the Sea Vixen in 1/72nd scale. I've been working on and off (mostly off) on a Cyber Hobby FAW.1 for quite some time and I have the QB nose (big improvement) and the Pavla replacement cockpit and seats (huge improvement!). I'll have to pore over this thread to see how I can further improve mine (I know mine is the earlier incarnation, but I have no doubts that there are many pearls of wisdom from you Bill on how to improve any Sea Vixen kit). And whilst Airfix are having their magic pixies down-scale their Sea Vixen, I think they need to do the same for the Spitfire Mk.XII and the Buccaneer. Enough of 1/48th, I need 1/72nd scale kits - it is an addiction that must be fed!

Best Regards,

Jason (fellow FAA nut enthusiast)